Your Duties under REACH & CLP Regulations

Under new EU chemical legislation (REACH – Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals and CLP-Classification, Labelling and Packaging), distributors of chemicals have a number of legal duties.

If your Company sources chemicals within the EU, stores them and supplies to third parties, then you are a Chemical Distributor. Distributors do not use or change chemicals.

So if you are a Chemical Distributor (e.g. hardware store), you have the following duties under REACH:

  1. Pass health and safety information about hazards and risks of the chemicals along the supply chain (e.g. provide Safety Data Sheets);
  2. Ensure that all chemicals that you place on the market have been registered or pre-registered by their suppliers by the required REACH registration deadlines;
  3. If you supply articles containing 0.1% or more of a substance of very high concern as named by the European Chemicals Agency, you should provide users with information for safe use of such article;
  4. Keep all records for REACH compliance for 10 years after last supply of a chemical;
  5. Ensure that Safety Data Sheets are provided in the relevant language and contain details of any specific national regulations (e.g. exposure limits, disposal, etc);
  6. Be aware that if you add your own contact details in Section 1 of the Safety Data Sheet – you are responsible for its content;
  7. If you compile your own Safety Data Sheet, ensure that information on uses passed on by  a customer is included.

Your duties under CLP:

Ensure that all hazardous chemicals are correctly labelled before delivered to customers. The label must contain:

  1. Hazard information in the national language
  2. EU suppliers contact details
  3. Hazard symbols/pictograms

Other points to remember:

  1. If you import chemicals from outside the EU, remember that you are an Importer under REACH and CLP and may have registration or notification obligations.
  2. If you purchase chemicals within the EU and then blend/mix them with other chemicals or re-fill or decant them into new containers, you are a Downstream User under REACH and CLP and have additional duties along with your distribution duties.

See also:

Chemical Agents Risk Assessments

Chemical Safety Awareness Training

HSA Guide to Chemical Safety