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Improving how substances are evaluated

Improving how substances are evaluated

ECHA/NA/16/05

An external report suggests that further improvements can be made to substance evaluation under REACH. While significant advances have been made, the report recommends changes to improve workability and efficient use of resources for registrants and authorities.

Helsinki, 18 February 2016 A report commissioned by ECHA to assess the effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and workability of substance evaluation under REACH, found the information on ECHA's website to be fairly comprehensive and fit for purpose.

The report mentions several positive aspects, particularly noting the valuable contribution that the integrated screening for candidate substances has had on selecting substances for the Community rolling action plan (CoRAP).

Furthermore, the Member States appreciate the support given to them by ECHA and the Member State Committee Secretariat. They also find the interaction between the evaluating Member State and registrants very helpful.

The report proposes a number of areas for fine-tuning substance evaluation including:

  • tackling the short deadlines under the legislation that both registrants and authorities struggle to comply with
  • improving the communication to registrants of the time schedule for decision making
  • accelerating the referral process to avoid creating a backlog of old cases
  • ensuring that CoRAP addresses substances that matter in light of the increasing workload and available resources
  • improving the interplay between substance evaluation and compliance check, i.e. always having a compliance check to address data gaps in support to substance evaluation.

The findings of the report were discussed by the participants at the Workshop on Substance Evaluation in November 2015. ECHA is considering the findings of the report and recommendations from the workshop and will take the necessary follow-up actions during the course of 2016.  

 

Further information

The assessment was carried out by Amec Foster Wheeler Environment and Infrastructure UK Limited in association with Building Research Establishment Limited and Peter Fisk Associates Limited. It does not represent the views or position of ECHA.