Potential Improvement to Health and the Environment

There is little doubt that the identification and control of hazardous chemicals is necessary to protect human health and the environment. An assessment of the occupational health benefits of REACH estimates that improved chemical risk assessment and risk management can reduce compensation for worker-related illness by between 18 and 54 billion over a 30-year period [190]. The long-term benefits of improved environmental protection resulting from the identification of hazardous chemicals under REACH (e.g., avoided costs for carrying out environmental remediation) can readily result in savings of hundreds of million Euro per substance [190]. Based on World Bank estimates that chemicals and chemical pollution causes between 0.6% and 2.5% of diseases in developed countries, the European Commission calculated a saving of 50 billion on health and medical care within the EU over 30 years could result if REACH can reduce the occurrence of disease by 0.1% [282]. 

There is the danger that REACH could become an administrative burden to companies and that the updated SDS end up being stored in a filing cabinet. Studies on the benefits to health and the environment do not consider how REACH can be implemented to provide efficient 

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