market surveillance

UK Beauty Products Recalled

recalled-products

Story from Westbriton.co.uk:

A warning has gone out about the dangers of potentially unsafe electrical beauty equipment.

Cornwall Trading Standards has published a list of seven products that have been recalled and has offered advice to consumers in the Christmas gift-buying season.

It said that some products made and bought from outside the EU can not only pose a danger but put users at risk of breaking the law. Products without a genuine CE label are not safety compliant and can lead to electric shocks, exposure to unsafe UV levels or overheating, causing products to catch fire. Consumers providing treatments, even to friends and family in their home, have a legal obligation to abide by the relevant laws and regulations.

Machinery Avant 600 Compliant – Not Just Yet

Machinery of the Avant 600 series produced by Finnish manufacturer Avant Tecno was prohibited from being placed on the EU market due to non-conformity with the essential health and safety requirements set out in Directive 2006/42/EC. The European Commission is now forcing the manufacturer to take corrective actions with respect to machinery that has already been placed on the market.

REACH: Inspections Show Huge Non-Compliance

REACH Compliance

An investigation by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has uncovered that of a total of 1 181 companies inspected, 67% did not comply with one or more provisions of obligations under REACH and rules on the classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) of chemicals. This dramatic non-compliance percentage shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in training and in enforcement in order to improve the performance.

The ECHA Forum’s second enforcement project (REF-2) focused on checking the compliance of downstream users – particularly formulators of mixtures – with the essential requirements of the REACH and CLP regulations. This enforcement project promoted a level playing field through the harmonisation of enforcement approaches in the Member States and fostered cooperation between inspectors. It was carried out in 29 Member States or EEA countries.

The project’s operational phase was carried out from May 2011 until March 2012. The national enforcement authorities inspected 1 181 enterprises covering 6 900 substances, 4500 mixtures and 4500 safety data sheets (SDSs). The majority of the inspected companies were small or medium-sized. More than half of the inspected companies were not only active as downstream users but also in additional roles, e.g. as manufacturers, importers, distributors and only representatives.

Report shows fewer dangerous products reaching EU market

Brussels, 08 May 2012 – EU consumers want to be sure that the products – whether produced in the EU or imported from third-countries – are safe. The good news is that thanks to the increasing effectiveness of the EU’s rapid alert system for non-food dangerous products (“RAPEX”) dangerous products are detected earlier and more effectively and are more promptly removed from the EU market. This process involves a chain of actions including upstream efforts to design out risks at source, better risk assessment and close co-operation between EU authorities, notably customs, to identify risks at the points of entry.