What are the overall aims of the new chemicals regulation?
The European Commission’s two most important aims are to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the hazards of chemicals and to enhance the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. Under REACH, the burden of proof for demonstrating the safe use of chemicals will be transferred from Member States to industry to ensure that risks to human health and environment are avoided or adequately controlled. Enterprises that manufacture or import more than one tonne of a chemical substance per year will be required to register the chemical in a central database. 2. Why is a new EU chemicals policy needed? REACH will replace 40 existing legal acts and create a single system for all chemical substances. This is different from the current chemical legislation, which distinguishes between so-called “existing” and “new” chemicals, based on the cut-off date of 1981. All chemicals that were put on the market before 1981 were called “existing” chemicals. In 1981, they numbere
