ECHA had 3.1 Million CLP notifications
Helsinki -- By 3 Jan 2011, ECHA -- the European Chemicals Agency -- had received over 3 million notifications of 24 529 substances for the Classification and Labelling Inventory.
The 3 Jan deadline was one by which industry had to notify ECHA of the classification and labelling of all chemical substances that are hazardous or subject to registration under the REACH regulation and placed on the European Union market. (REACH stands for registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals.)
Geert Dancet, executive director of ECHA, said, "This is a perfect start for the International Year of Chemistry. The Classification and Labelling Inventory, which will be publicly available later this year, will significantly improve safety by providing up-to-date information on all the hazardous substances that are on the EU market today."
The Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) regulation relates to chemical substances and mixtures. It introduces into the EU the criteria of the United Nations' Globally Harmonised System for classifying and labelling chemicals.
One of the aims of the CLP regulation is to improve protection of human health and the environment by providing criteria for defining when a substance or mixture displays properties that lead to its classification as hazardous.
CLP applies to manufacturers, importers, users or distributors of chemical substances or mixtures. They must classify, label and package any substance or mixture, regardless of its annual tonnage, in accordance with the Regulation.
The largest number of the notifications, over 800 000, came from Germany. Over 500 000 notifications were submitted from the UK and nearly 300 000 from France. All together over 6600 companies notified at least one substance.
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