REACH changes that will impact you and your supply chain

02.23.2011 // Posted by: Tom Valliere // Posted in: Articles, Supply Chain

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If there has ever been a more dynamic regulatory regimen that impacts electronic products and other articles I certainly haven't seen it. Every six months we get a new list of substances manufacturers need to identify in their products and, if they meet weight thresholds, possibly disclose their presence to customers. Annually a subset of these substances gets placed on the fast-track to restriction.

Today there are 46 substances that are disclosable to customers in the European Economic Area (EU+Norway, Lichtenstein, and Iceland) if they meet the weight threshold (we'll talk more about this later). These are defined on the candidate list of substances of very high concern. Shortly we should see another proposed list, then another later this year.

The enforcement authorities will soon have article manufacturers on their radar screen, too. So far they've focused on chemical manufacturers, then formulators. However, a recent NGO report called The Fight to Know? Substances Of Very High Concern (SVHC) & The Citizens' Right To Know Under Reach (available at http://bit.ly/EEBArt33) assessing the disclosure provisions of Article 33, paragraph 2 (which says that within 45 days of a request from a consumer, a manufacturer/importer must disclose the presence of candidate SVHCs, if any in an amount >0.1%w/w, to the requestor) found that, of 158 requests to retailers and brands, 50% did not answer at all and over 75% were deemed to give answers that do not fulfill minimum REACH requirements. This has gotten the Enforcement authorities' attention and will drive future activities as they head towards enforcement of article-related provisions.

The disclosure provisions of article 33 require, as a refresher, that if a candidate SVHC is present in an article above 0.1% weight by weight of the article, the identity of the substance along with any safe use information available to the manufacturer must be provided to the "recipient of the article", as well as to consumers who ask for it, as described above. The current view of what exactly constitutes an "article", however, is changing. In the latest draft of the guidance document for articles, no longer is it possible to call a desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power cord an "article". Instead, it is considered five articles. And, if 6 EU member states plus Norway get their way, that definition will drop even further, down to each component of the article that is itself an article. This would mean the composition of each wire, each capacitor, each resistor, and so on would have to be tested against the article 33 requirement instead of simply doing it at the system level. This will greatly expand the reporting required through the supply chain, which is precisely what the Member States and the Nordic Council (which prepared a study on the subject available here – http://bit.ly/norden1) desire. This could drive extensive change soon.

As if this were not enough, two new activities begin this year: the authorization process, and the notification process.

Authorization is the first step towards restriction after a substance has been identified as an SVHC. Six substances will begin going through the Authorization process (including commonly use phthalates like DEHP, a plasticizer often found in cable insulation, for example) very soon, and eight more have been proposed. In the authorization process, manufacturers of registered SVHCs must submit applications for authorization to allow their products to continue to be used for specific purposes and in specific supply chains. The applications must make a case that potential exposure to the substance is either under control during the entire lifecycle, or its replacement would be technically or economically infeasible. Downstream users, like component manufacturers and electronics OEMs, need to assess the presence of these substances in their products and determine whether they can be replaced, or whether the supply chain goes through the EU, since authorization does not impact imported articles containing authorized substances (but restriction, the next step after authorization, does), and decide whether to ask their upstream chemical supplier to apply for authorization or replace the substance.

Article manufacturers will have to notify the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA; www.echa.eu) beginning June 1, 2011 if, in aggregate, they place over 1 metric ton per year of any given SVHC on the market in the EU, and the substance is not already registered for that use. ECHA is providing information on their website now of registered substances and their uses, so manufacturers will need to review their uses of each candidate SVHC (e.g. DEHP is used as a plasticizer), identify its presence across the entirety of products they place on the market, and sum the weights to see if they need to take action.

To learn more about these and other changes to the EU's REACH regulation, you can attend a DCA webinar on the upcoming changes to the REACH regulation that impact article manufacturers at http://bit.ly/20110302.

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