Registration chemicals has huge financial impact
REACH enormously increases the costs of Dutch small and medium sized entrepreneurs. This is the result of a research by two institutes Panteia & IVAM . Dutch Secretary of State for Environment, Mrs. Wilma Mansveld, who commissioned the research, yesterday sent the report to the Parliament. The report states that REACH – the European regulation on the production and use of and trade in chemicals – will cost Dutch SMEs annually between €425 million and €670 million. That equals to on average €24.500 per company. President Ineke Dezentjé – Hamming of the association of the Dutch technology industry, FME: “The administrative burden of REACH causes great concern. We urge that the Government will take measures to reduce the costs.”
According to the report, between 2013 and 2018 the Dutch SME will spend more than four billion on REACH. That is three times as much as previously expected. President Ineke Dezentjé – Hamming of the association of the Dutch technology industry, FME stated: “Obviously the FME supports the objective of REACH, safe handling of chemicals and environmental protection. However, it can and should be done more efficient, in particular because the report shows that the costs are exploding.”
FME thinks the cost can be reduced by 1 billion euro. Take the safety data sheets (SDS), for example. They used to have approximately twenty pages. Nowadays a SDS has an average of 120 pages, and that can even reach more than 200 pages. Most companies deal with multiple chemical substances, leading to a few thousand pages of reading material.
Also the fact that each business must perform a risk analysis, is not efficient and is a waste of money. For operations such as painting, spraying, degreasing all companies do more or less the same risk analysis.
REACH covers not just chemicals used in production, but also hazardous substances in products. For the latter, a reporting obligation also applies to products with substances for which the chances are extremely small that they would end up in the human body. The FME considers it is not right to require reporting in all cases. Dezentjé : “Whether a plastic softener is used in a teether or in a bike saddle, makes a huge difference. ”
Source: FME-CWM
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