New chemicals regulation

It is explained that, although the chemical industry in Europe will bear the brunt of the extensive new chemicals regulations, the PU industry will also be greatly affected... 

In REACH, the new chemicals regulation, which entered into force on 1 June 2007, detailed guidance documents on different REACH elements, including risk characterization and the use of assessment factors, are currently in preparation (spring 2007). These documents will probably be available on the EU DG Environment REACH Web site (EU 2006) when published. 

An economic and legal frame is, on the other hand, applied in much of the news coverage related to the European Union, in particular to the Reach legislation. In contrast to the relative silence about the new chemical regulation in the Swedish press (cf. Table 4.3), the Polish journalists at the two largest national newspapers seem to pay quite a lot of attention to the implementation stage. The mass media take on the EU in this context is one of scepticism, and the views of the Polish companies affected dominate the news material and are at the centre of the journalists writing. In one article the reporter addressed the readers directly ... 

Norwegian Pollution Control Authority (2007) REACH - a new chemicals regulation for the EU and EEA countries. Available via http //www.sft.no/publikasjoner/2326/ta2326.pdf. 

New chemical exposure limits (NCELs) for new chemicals regulated under TSCA are modeled after OSHA s permissible exposure limits (PELs) for workers exposed to a substance by inhalation. NCELs may include an eight-hour time weighted average limit or a short-term exposure limit for a chemical substance. In 1995, the US EPA described the risk basis for determining... 

The LD q for sodium bromide taken orally by rats is 3.5 g/kg body weight, and the TD q orally in rats is 720 mg/kg (8). RTECS Hsts data on reproductive effects in male and female rats. Sodium bromide is Hsted in the TSCA Inventory, the Canadian Domestic Substances Hst (DSL), the European Inventory of Existing Commercial Chemical Substances (EINECS), the Japanese Existing and New Chemical Substances (ENCS), and the Korean Existing Chemicals Hst (ECL). It is not regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. 

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was enacted in 1976 to identify and control toxic chemical ha2ards to human health and the environment. One of the main provisions of TSCA was to estabUsh and maintain an inventory of all chemicals in commerce in the United States for the purpose of regulating any of the chemicals that might pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. An initial inventory of chemicals was estabhshed by requiring companies to report to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) all substances that were imported, manufactured, processed, distributed, or disposed of in the United States. Over 50,000 chemical substances were reported. PoUowing this initial inventory, introduction of all new chemical substances requires a Premanufacturing Notification (PMN) process. To be included in the PMN are the identity of the new chemical, the estimated first year and maximum production volume, manufacture and process information, a description of proposed use, potential release to the environment, possible human exposure to the new substance, and any health or environmental test data available at the time of submission. In the 10 years that TSCA has been in effect, the USEPA has received over 10,000 PMNs and up to 10% of the submissions each year are for dyes (382)... 

However, the cost of simple substitution and shallow innovation can be substantial. The new EU regulations on Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) are expected to result in a large number of chemicals that are currently freely available to vanish from the market. Formulated commercial products such as inks, adhesives and paints can contain up to 60 individual chemicals in one formulation. If one of these is withdrawn as a result of REACH, the potential costs of reformulation can be very high. 

At the present time, the list of statutes and regulations governing the manufacture, transportation, and use of new chemical products includes the following Twenty-four... 

The Perkin family soon bought a rural property near a canal northwest of London, far from the city s new antipollution regulations. At this point, few of William Henry s friends or relatives had so much as glimpsed the inside of a chemical factory. Perkin s knowledge of manufacturing came only from books, but his ignorance was not a serious drawback. Because no one had ever built the kind of equipment he needed or planned such a chemical process before, there was little to imitate. 

And third, REACH (regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), the European new chemicals legislation, has interrelation to the waste sector and therefore to the project. 

Laboratories are known to apply for the authorization of new active ingredients in order to ensure that the prices of new products are higher than those of products already on the market. Once marketed, products are subject to such strict price regulation that the authorities barely allow adjustment even for general inflation. We have calculated that only 30.05 per cent of the new chemical entities authorized for the first time in Spain between 1990 and 1997 were actually classified as therapeutic improvements at the time of their introduction onto the market. For this evaluation we used the definitions and data on therapeutic improvement released each year by the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs in their publication Informacion Terapeutica del Sistema Nacional de Salud. 

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