After UK Transition: Working with Chemicals - Episode - 3 - CLP, REACH & PIC

After UK Transition: Working with Chemicals - Episode - 3 - CLP, REACH & PIC In this episode, we are joined by Alun Williams, Lead for External Comms and Stakeholder Engagement from the Chemicals team at DEFRA and Andrea Caitens, CLP, PIC and REACG Transition Programme Lead, Future Readiness at HSE. We discuss the key differences between EU to UK REACH, the roles and responsibilities in UK REACH actions that people and businesses need to take in relation to CLP and PIC. ----more---- Visit our website for further information and guidance on CLP, REACH and PIC. For any queries, get in touch via REACH & CLP: [email protected] PIC: [email protected] Podcast transcriptWelcome to the Health and Safety Executive podcast with me Mick Ord. I hope I find you in good health. This is the fourth in our series of podcasts designed to guide you and your business safely through some of the regulatory changes which are coming in at the end of the transition period.Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at BPR and PPP and this week we’re looking at a total of Three Regimes in the one episode – REACH, CLP and PIC.REACH is of course the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals ; CLP is Chemicals Classification, Labelling and Packaging and PIC is Prior Informed Consent for the export and import of hazardous chemicals, all three of which will change to varying degrees at the end of December 2020. So whether your company does business in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or England we’ve some important information to relay to you.After we’ve heard from our two experts, I’ll be giving out some important info about where you can find out more on what we’re talking about in this episode and also how you subscribe to our free eBulletin service so you’re kept in touch with news and developments as they happen.For this episode, I’ve been speaking to Andrea Caitens a regulatory scientist from the HSE’s Chemicals Regulatory Division. She’s also the CLP Lead in the Transitions Programme Team. We’ll be hearing from Andrea shortly about the changes to CLP and PIC, but first from Alun Williams who’s the Lead for External Comms and Stakeholder Engagement from the Chemicals Team at DEFRA. He’s been telling us about the changes to the UK REACH regulations.Alun, you say on your website that the key principles for REACH are retained – so what are these principles?Alun:The regulatory framework that we are putting in place for UK REACH will retain both the fundamental approach of REACH with its aims of ensuring a high level protection of human health and its key principles of REACH.These include the “no data, no market” principle, the “last resort” principle on animal testing, access to information for workers and the precautionary principle as well as the provision for Only Representatives otherwise known as O.Rs.Mick:What are you doing to mitigate costs to business?Alun:Well, we are keeping the transition to UK REACH as simple as possible, avoiding change for change’s sake. For example, in building the Comply with UK REACH IT system, we have made sure it will work very much like the ECHA owned REACH-IT, including the same software requirements and many of the processes that businesses have been using and understand.We have put in place “grace period of provisions” of “Grandfathering” and “Downstream User Import Notifications” to minimize the costs for businesses and maintain market access to both the EU and UK market.Following concerns raised about the current timelines for supplying data to the UK regulator, we have decided to extend these deadlines which would enable industry to mitigate costs without reducing important environmental and health protections.Mick:Will UK business still be able to access the EU market?Alun:Yes, GB-based businesses wanting to place a chemical on the EU market will need to get that chemical registered with the European Chemicals Agency or ECHA. That registration must be held by a