Enforcement Forum agrees on scope of checks for consumer products and biocides in 2022

The Forum’s 10th major enforcement project (REF-10) will focus on integrated controls of consumer products. The Forum agreed that inspectors will be able to check that products comply with many different restrictions for hazardous substances under REACH.
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Helsinki, 24 March 2021 - Among those that inspectors could check are new entries such as restrictions for carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic substances in textiles, the siloxanes D4/D5 in wash-off cosmetic products, or bisphenol A in thermal paper.

Controls will also check whether products comply with restrictions for the presence of persistent organic pollutants defined under the POPs Regulation. Here, inspectors could check PFOA in water repellent textiles or ski waxes, or short chain chlorinated paraffins in soft plastic articles.

The lists of REACH and POP restrictions that will be covered in the project are still under development but will provide much choice to the inspectors resulting in wide-ranging controls of products in the EU-EEA countries.

Enforcers will also check REACH duties for substances in articles requiring that information on substances of very high concern in products is being communicated in the supply chain.

To promote the integrated enforcement of chemicals legislation, the controls of the project will also allow inspectors to cooperate with authorities responsible for enforcing requirements of the Toy Safety and RoHS directives, which are complementary to REACH and POPs and restrict the presence of certain substances in toys, and electronic and electrical equipment.

The BPR Subgroup of the Forum agreed that inspections in its BEF-2 project will focus on controls of biocidal products for the presence of approved and non-approved active substances. The controls will be wide covering all types of biocidal product types and include both products already authorised under the BPR as well as products covered by pieces of national biocides legislation (i.e. transitional measures under Article 89 of BPR). Checks in the project may also include control labelling of biocides, online advertising, verifying that the active substance in the product is coming from an approved distributor, verifying active substances by chemical analysis, and targeted controls of disinfectants.

REF-10 and BEF-2 project will both be prepared in 2021, with inspections carried out in 2022 and reports to be published in 2023.

The Forum for Exchange of Information on Enforcement met virtually on 16-18 March 2021, while the BPRS met virtually on 23 March 2021.