EU announces chemicals enforcement initiative for online sales regulation

21 Jun 2023 --- The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is setting up a pan-EU enforcement project to check compliance with the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) restrictions and the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation requirements. 

The agency reports that online sale of chemicals is an area of high non-compliance and aims to strengthen enforcement with the upcoming project.

ECHA’s Enforcement Forum and its subgroup on Biocidal Products Regulation (BPRS) met last week. The finalized REACH-EN-FORCE (REF)-13 project will take place in 2025, cracking down on online sales of products such as toys, common household goods or chemicals. 

Katja vom Hofe, exiting chairperson of ECHA’s enforcement forum, sat down with ECHA’s Safer Chemicals Podcast host to breakdown the highlights of the forum’s meeting and elaborate on the REF-13 project.

“During this meeting, we chose the topic for Project REF-13 – the enforcement of chemical products that are sold online. Inspectors will check products such as toys, household goods and chemicals for compliance with the region CLP duties.” 

“Under CLP, inspectors will also check that mixtures are classified, labeled and packaged in line with the regulation. And that online offers include all the required information about the hazards of the mixture,” vom Hofe continues.

Monitoring online safety
Inspectors may also check compliance with restrictions under the Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulation and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive.

The projects will be prepared in 2024, inspections are planned for 2025 and reports are expected to be published in 2026.“In REF-8, we found very high rates of non-compliance, as high as 78%,” says vom Hofe. Inspectors found that mixtures and articles sold online contained restricted hazardous substances, including those causing cancer. 

“The non-compliance rate would be enough motivation for us to address online sales again, but we had a couple of other reasons, too. As we all know, online sales are continuously growing, and they enable or create a sales environment that allows businesses to sell directly to consumers, which are a somewhat vulnerable group in the setting,” elaborates vom Hofe.

“Another reason we chose the topic again was that the legal landscape is different from a few years ago. New horizontal legislation such as the Digital Services Act, General Product Safety Regulation, and some new provisions under the CLP address online sales now.” 

“We hope the new legal texts will help inspectors address online sales even better. And we’ll be able to test this in practice to see how the legislations align and whether everything’s covered.”

Timeline of inspections
At the meeting, the BPRS agreed that the next major enforcement project on biocides (BEF-3) would focus on controlling the correctness of product labels for biocidal products such as pesticides. Inspectors will check that the information on the labeling of biocides corresponds to what has been authorized and included in the “Summary of Product Characteristics.” 

Inspectors may also check the presence and quality of the information in the Safety Data Sheets, which is required for biocidal products.

The REF-13 and BEF-3 projects will be prepared in 2024, inspections are planned for 2025 and reports are expected to be published in 2026.

“The operational phase is probably the most significant because that’s when the inspectors go out and do the inspections. That’s going to be happening in 2025,” says vom Hofe.

“For the forum, the planning phases are just as important, starting at the beginning of 2024. We’ll set up a working group, and they have a year to prepare the project – draft the manual, the questionnaire, and everything that inspectors need to do.” 

“We will train inspectors in 2024, and then in 2025, everybody will be sent out for inspections. The results and the project report will be available in 2026,” vom Hofe elaborates.

The next forum meeting is scheduled for November this year, with a new chair and vice chair expected to shed more light on the projects.

By Radhika Sikaria