REACHblog®

The European Commission (EC) announced on October 28, 2025, the launch of the Critical Chemicals Alliance (CCA). According to the EC, the CCA “stems directly from the Chemicals [Industry] Action Plan adopted in July 2025, which aims to boost the competitiveness, resilience and sustainability of Europe's chemical industry.” The CCA is intended to address key challenges facing the chemicals sector, “including the risk of plant closures, trade disruptions, and the urgent need for investment...

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on October 9, 2025, that at its October 7-8, 2025, meeting, the Member State Committee (MSC) agreed to identify 1,1'-(ethane-1,2-diyl)bis[pentabromobenzene] (DBDPE) as a substance of very high concern (SVHC) because of its very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) properties. ECHA states that it plans to add the substance to the Candidate List in November 2025. ECHA notes that “[b]esides the regular obligations following the...

The European Commission (EC) began a public consultation on July 8, 2025, on a draft act that will establish rules for calculating, verifying, and reporting on recycled plastic content in single-use plastic beverage bottles. According to the EC, this will provide legal clarity to European Union (EU) member states “so they can properly implement EU rules on single-use plastics,” helping to increase the use of recycled material in the EU economy and reduce plastic waste incineration and...

The United Kingdom’s (UK) Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) began a public consultation on July 14, 2025, on its proposals to extend the UK REACH transitional registration submission deadlines. UK REACH requires businesses to register with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) chemicals that are placed on the market in Great Britain (GB). According to Defra, when the UK left the European Union (EU), “information on substances on the GB market which had been...

On June 23, 2025, the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) published a Think Tank briefing entitled “Targeted scrutiny of the EU chemicals strategy for sustainability.” According to EPRS, while the European Commission (EC) has made progress in implementing initiatives outlined in the 2020 Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, certain key actions remain unfulfilled. These include revising the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation...

The United Kingdom’s (UK) Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has begun a public consultation on a legislative proposal to reform the Great Britain (GB) Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation. HSE notes that GB CLP Article 37 links mandatory classification and labeling (MCL) in GB to evaluation activity in the European Union’s (EU) harmonized classification and labeling (CLH) system by creating a statutory obligation to consider the European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA)...

On June 2, 2025, the United Kingdom (UK) Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) requested comment on a draft indicative list for long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCA), their salts, and related compounds. According to Defra, at the 20th meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention on POPs, the Committee recommended listing LC-PFCAs, their salts, and related compounds in Annex A of the Convention, allowing for...

The European Commission (EC) released on May 22, 2025, the identity of the countries that present a low or high risk of deforestation in producing seven commodities (cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood) that are “the most relevant in terms of driving global deforestation and forest degradation” under the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The classification takes into account other criteria as listed in Article 29(4) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1115. The...

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on May 20, 2025, that the redesigned Classification and Labeling (C&L) Inventory is now available in ECHA CHEM, ECHA’s public database containing information from all Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) registrations received by ECHA. According to ECHA, the C&L Inventory includes information on more than 4,400 European Union (EU)-level harmonized classifications and seven million classifications...

The European Commission (EC) requested that the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) assess the risks posed by certain hexavalent chromium substances. ECHA announced on April 29, 2025, that it has concluded that a European Union (EU)-wide restriction for hexavalent chromium substances is justified because the substances “are among the most potent workplace carcinogens and pose a serious risk to workers’ health.” ECHA states that it expects to begin a six-month public consultation on a ban on...