Tag Archives: SVHC

REACH News: 8 New SVHC Intentions

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In REACH related news, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced recently that the Registry of Intentions of Substances of Very High Concern has been updated with eight new intentions.  The list of intentions lets companies prepare for commenting.  It also indicates it’s time to start internal process prep in the event that a listed chemical does become regulated.

The eight new intentions of SVHCs and their CAS numbers are:

  1.     Heptacosafluorotetradecanoic acid, CAS 376-06-7
  2.     Pentacosafluorotridecanoic acid, CAS 72629-94-8
  3.     Henicosafluoroundecanoic acid, CAS 2058-94-8
  4.     Tricosafluorododecanoic acid, CAS 307-55-1
  5.     Methoxy acetic acid, CAS 625-45-6
  6.     Cadmium sulphide, CAS 1306-23-6
  7.     Cadmium, CAS 7440-43-9
  8.     Cadmium oxide, CAS 1306-23-6

Obviously, cadmium is a featured intention for this, Europe’s influential chemical blacklist.  Interestingly, cadmium (along with lead) is also one of the most often requested exemptions under RoHS directive for electronics.  Just worth mentioning; may serve as reference if you’re thinking of commenting on the candidacy of cadmium for later in the process.

Pending SVHCs

As a rule, it’s important to know what is on tomorrow’s list of Substances of Very High Concern.  Best practice is know what’s pending as well as you know what’s certain.  Especially in times like these, when regulations are made bona fide and updated seemingly each week.

ECHA’s page on SVHC Intentions is here if you would like more information:  http://echa.europa.eu/registry-of-current-svhc-intentions.  Another possible action is to forward this blog post to your company’s risk management team — they will want to know.

ECHA to Add 7 Chemicals to REACH SVHC List

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The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) will shortly add seven new chemical-substances to REACH regulation’s Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC). The comment period was slated to last through July 4, but ECHA says that the consultation period is now over.

The seven candidates for SVHC are as follows:

  1. 2-ethoxyethyl acetate
  2. strontium chromate
  3. 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, di-C7-11-branched and linear alkyl esters
  4. Hydrazine
  5. 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidone
  6. 1,2,3-trichloropropane
  7. 1,2-Benzenedicarboxylic acid, di-C6-8-branched alkyl esters, C7-rich
  8. Cobalt dichloride

The list shows eight substances because it includes cobalt dichloride. The status of cobalt dichloride is actually up for re-evaluation, due to its revised classification as both carcinogenic and toxic for reproduction. Cobalt chloride was originally identified in October 2008 as SVHC solely on its carcinogenic properties, says REACHtracker.

REACH update

The Candidate List is growing. There are now 46 SVHCs. The next ECHA consultation is planned for August, and that will kick off a busy time as the European Commission expects to have reviewed and listed 135 SVHCs by the end of 2012. The goal is to have reviewed, listed and regulated all relevant known SVHCs by 2020.

In the meantime, expect bi-annual updates to the Candidate List.

Further reading

For more on these chemicals, see Chemical Watch (pay site).

For detail on each chemical, here’s a good page from Safe Packaging.

The Actio chemical databases will be updated to reflect the change as soon as the Candidate List is updated; for now these chemicals are flagged as “probable SVHCs.” Wishing you good luck with quality assurance efforts and product development in this era of digital chemical management. It’s not easy!