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32% of the chemical substances produced or imported in the European Union since 2010 in quantities greater than 1,000 tonnes per year do not comply with the REACH Regulation. This is according to the European Environment Bureau (EEB), based on a joint study by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung, BfR) and the German Environment Agency (UBA).
On average, more than three out of 10 substances widely on sale failed to pass a test on evaluation of the dossiers which are supposed to contain data concerning the toxicity of these substances for the environment and humans, in order to guarantee their safe use.
Four out of 10 reports submitted did not comply with the legal requirements regarding the evaluation of mutagenic effects (the potential for causing gene mutations) and 34% were deficient with regard to the effects on fertility. Only 31% met the REACH requirements regarding toxicological and ecotoxicological information. The remaining percentage were dossiers for which further research needed to be performed.
The ECHA, based in Helsinki, is swamped by about 40,000 registration dossiers (out of around 150,000 molecules in circulation). It was able to “verify the conformity” of only 1,780 of them, it said.
