Concordia House
St James Business Park
Grimbald Crag Court
Knaresborough
North Yorkshire HG5 8QB
United Kingdom
Mr Matthew Curl
Tel: +44 1423 799 642
Email : sulphuric_acid@tsgeurope.com
REACH regulation
REACH, the EU regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, entered into force on 1 June 2007.
The aim of REACH is to protect human health and the environment, maintain the competitiveness of the European chemical industry and prevent fragmentation of the internal market. This regulation is applicable in the same way across the 27 Member States of the European Union and in other countries of the European Economic Area (EEA).
It requires manufacturers and importers of substances in quantities exceeding one tonne per year to submit a registration to the European Chemical Agency (http://echa.europa.eu).
The European Chemicals Agency will manage one registration dossier per substance.
As the European chemical industry is a major economic factor, directly employing 1.8 million people (with a sales turnover of €747 billion in 2007), REACH is bound to impact the European economy as a whole... and ESA activities!
It is important to bear in mind that there are different deadlines for the registration:
The Sulphuric Acid Consortium
Since early 2007 ESA members are committed to ensure joined work for the preparation of registration for sulphuric acid and associated substances.
To facilitate compliance with the new regulations, an ESA REACH Steering Committee was formed to manage establishment of a consortium for sulphuric acid, sulphur dioxide and sulphur trioxide.
Consortia are vital to ensure relevant exchange of information on hazards, uses and exposure of substances.
At its meeting of 27 November 2008 the ESA REACH Steering Committee was disbanded to give birth to the Sulphuric Acid Consortium, which is independent of ESA, with the aim of registering sulphuric acid, sulphur dioxide and sulphur trioxide under REACH. ESA is thus no longer in charge of the Consortium.
Organisation of the consortium
The company TSGE (http://www.tsgeurope.com) has been appointed as Project Manager of the consortium and handles the management and daily operations.
The lead companies are LANXESS (for SO3 & H2SO4) and Grillo Werke (for SO2), from Germany.
Your company must register under REACH
All manufacturers, importers and only representatives of sulphuric acid, sulphur dioxide and/or sulphur trioxide can apply for membership of the Consortium, whether or not they are members of ESA. However, in order to be as efficient as possible, ESA recommends that the number of members of the Consortium be limited to those companies that want to positively bring manpower and knowledge in the work to be carried out. All other companies obliged to register under REACH will have access to the Registration data produced by the Consortium at a lower, very reasonable cost (EUR 5,000 to 10,000) through a “letter of access”.
We also strongly encourage companies who are making use of these substances (SO2, SO3 & H2SO4) to take contact with Mr Matthew Curl (sulphuric_acid@tsgeurope.com) in order to validate eventual necessary actions to them.
For more information
For more information on REACH activities and the Sulphuric Acid Consortium, please contact Matthew Curl at TSGE.