REACH: also leather tanning supplies are involved

If you deal with leather tanning supplies and with chemical products in general, you have certainly heard about REACH, an important regulation concerning chemical substances. Here is an essential explanation of what REACH is about.

What is REACH?

Let’s start with the word itself: REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals; hence the main objective of this regulation, which was introduced by the European Union on December the 18th 2006: regulating the production and use of chemical products, as well as the impact they might have on human health and on the environment. Entered into force on June the 1st 2007, this European Union regulation consists of 849 pages and its impact has spread to industries all over the world. REACH is a very important and complex regulation, which concerns in particular some substances contained in given objects, and all the companies that import these goods into Europe might have to observe the rules it contains.
In addition to the REACH regulation, also a European Chemicals Agency has been established to deal with all its scientific, administrative and technical aspects.
As above said, the REACH regulation includes registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals: for registration, companies need to present a series of information about the substances to the European Chemicals Agency. The evaluation is carried out by member states and can result in a request of authorization or restriction, in case risks for human health and for the environment have been detected.

Why is REACH necessary?

The REACH regulation is also necessary to increase the knowledge regarding the dangers and risks deriving from chemical products and at the same time to strengthen the competitiveness and the capacity to innovate of the European chemical industry. In particular, the REACH regulation is meant to give more and complete details about the dangerous peculiarities of products, the risks connected to explosion, safety measures to be implemented.
What is important to highlight about REACH, is that the communication of data regarding the chemical products is carried on throughout the supply chain, from the suppliers of raw materials to final users. In this way, all the people who use these products (not only professionals), are aware of the types of products they are using and of the risks they might have, and they know what protection devices they should use.