Regulatory Information on Hazardous Chemicals

Hazardous ChemicalsECHA’s website now provides detailed information on the import and export of certain very hazardous chemicals and pesticides which are subject to the Prior Informed Concern (PIC) Regulation.

The new web pages contain over 10 years of regulatory information, reports and statistics that were previously made available in the European Database of Export and Import of Dangerous Chemicals (EDEXIM), which was used by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre before the PIC activities were handed over to ECHA.

EDEXIM was replaced by ECHA’s platform ePIC in the beginning of September and will no longer be available from 1 January 2015.

The new web pages are divided into five sections.

  1. The first is for chemicals that are subject to the PIC Regulation. Here, you can search for chemicals based on their EC and CAS number, chemical name, use category and whether they are listed in Annex I (and therefore subject to the export notification procedure) or Annex V (subject to a total export ban) of the regulation.
  2. The second section lists the exports of all chemicals, mixtures or articles containing at least one chemical subject to PIC. You can filter the search by year, exporting EU Member State, importing country, chemical and/or mixture name and the type of chemical (i.e. article, mixture or substance).
  3. In accordance with the Rotterdam Convention, countries outside the EU must notify the chemicals they export to the EU that are banned or severely restricted on their territory. This information is found in the third section on import notifications. This section has information on the date of export, the exporting and importing country, the name of the chemicals and the CAS number.
  4. The fourth section stores information on explicit consents and waivers. The export of chemicals may also be subject to a valid explicit consent from the importing country. This section can be searched by chemical/mixture name, importing and exporting country, use category, the date of request, the start and end date of the consent’s validity, and whether the consent is pending, accepted or rejected.
  5. The final section contains information on the designated national authorities including their contact details and whether they are responsible for industrial chemicals, pesticides, or both.

Companies and authorities will use the same system which will make reporting on the movement of very hazardous chemicals much more efficient.
Source: ECHA