Who needs to be certified?

Global chemical trade is a great advantage for the business and logistics, but it also creates challenges regarding the safety policies. As being surrounded by the chemicals in our everyday life, we do not often pay attention from where and how the chemicals are transported across the world. PINPOOLS GmbH only accepts registrations from companies with REACH certification.

In case you have worked in the chemical industry for some time, you most probably have heard about REACH certificate. It stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals and it sets the standards for the manufacturing, supply and safe use of chemicals in the European Economic Area (EAA) including the EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It entered into force on June 1, 2007.

The certificate is used throughout the all chemical substances in the daily life such as clothing, furniture, paints, and cleaning products. It is illegal to use or sell products which are not certified, and it secures the fact that the companies operating in the industry are aware of the risks and know how to deal with them. These companies are also obligated to offer security information to their customers about the safety issues. Besides the safety concerns REACH improves the European chemical industry’s competition level, gives an opportunity to develop new strategies to estimate the hazardous chemicals and secure the free trade in the European Economic Area.

REACH will affect your company if you operate as,

• Manufacturer producing or combining the product in the European Union area
• Importer in charge of importing to the EU area
• Downstream users who use chemicals in its own business. This can be as well a company operating in the EU area, which has a manufacturer outside of the EU. Most of the companies use chemicals at least in some way, sometimes even without realizing it, so that is why it is important to cross check your company’s obligations

Manufacturer and importer have to indicate for European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) the safe way to use the substances and inform the customers about risk management. If the company operates as end user, they are going to have different obligations. There are deadlines as well set for the registration. Each company has to be aware of their obligations depending on how they operate.

How to register and what does it cost?

As stated on ECHA (2019) “If you manufacture or import a substance in amounts less than one tonne a year, you do not need to register the substance. If you reach or exceed this threshold, your tonnage band will determine which information you need for your registration.”

For more information on registration, visit Health and Safety Executive.

In order to receive the certification, the payments has to be paid. Smaller companies are able to get a discount, but the amount depends on the company. There might be extra costs existing as well such as the evaluation of chemical safety, distributing the information and the research on substitutive substances. However, the company is able to lower the costs by pre-planning and cooperating with the partners.

 For more detailed information about the pricing, take a look on Chemical Inspection & Regulation Service.