Shipping Chemicals to Europe

PR Log (Press Release) – Jan 08, 2010 – Shipping to Europe?

New GHS requirements for classification and labelling will be in force soon.

The European Union’s (EU) Parliament adopted legislative reports

concerning GHS Regulations on classification, labelling and packaging

(CLP) of substances and mixtures, in their first reading agreement.

The EU’s GHS Regulations aims to maintain the current levels of protection, and to ensure a

smooth transition to a new system based on the UN’s Globally Harmonized System of

Classification and Labelling (GHS).

The EU’s CLP proposal will require the reclassification and labelling of most substances

by December 1, 2010, and June 1, 2015 for mixtures. Following entry into force of the

new EU CLP system, substances and mixtures must still be classified under the current

EU system of classification and labelling, however, may be voluntarily classified

according to the CLP system before the above dates.

There are unique transitional provisions that will be applied in the EU’s new CLP

Regulation. One such provision is that from December 1, 2010 until June 1, 2015,

substances will be required to be classified under both the current EU classification

system and the new CLP system, both classifications being required to be shown on the

Safety Data Sheet (SDS) in section 15.

Similar to the EU’s current system, the new CLP Regulation also establishes harmonized

lists classification and labelling of substances. The CLP Regulation has also established

‘translation tables’ to convert classifications under the current EU system into the new

CLP classification. The translation tables in the new CLP system will allow suppliers

and manufacturers to avoid having to reclassify all of the substances and mixtures that

they have already completed classifications for under the current EU system, thus

smoothing the transition into the new system.

The entry into force date of the new CLP Regulation is set at 20 days following

publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

For more information on the new EU CLP regulation, please feel free to contact the

Regulatory staff at ICC the Compliance Center, and we’ll be glad to assist you. In

addition, the European Commission has established the several webpages on their

website ( h t tp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/reach/ghs_legislation_en.htm ) dealing with the

proposal and legislation news.

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