EU round up – REACH registration leaves coatings ingredients unregistered

Paints and coatings companies have not responded comprehensively to requests from the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) that they register certain coatings ingredients in the now completed second registration process under European Union (EU) chemical control system REACH.

ECHA says that by the May 31 deadline for registering chemicals made, used or imported in quantities of 100t or more, there were 984 substances left unregistered that companies had earlier promised to register. Until they are registered, these chemicals cannot be used in the EU unless companies use less than 100t/yr of them.

Coating ingredients aluminium silicate; iron oxide black; calcium silicide; silane, dichlorodimethyl-reaction products with silica; and more were left unregistered, as were turpentine, petroleum resins, plus paraffin and hydrocarbon waxes, oxidised.

That said, ECHA deemed the registration round a success: by May 31, 3215 companies had submitted 9084 registration dossiers for chemicals manufactured or imported in quantities from 100 to 1000t/yr. The last REACH registration deadline for substances manufactured or imported in quantities above one tonne/yr is May 31, 2018.

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