The REACH Delivery service is available to all companies worldwide and will be launched on 10 January 2011.
REACH Delivery is an online service which enables the electronic delivery, receipt, control, update, audit and tracking of Safety Data Sheets in line with the REACH regulations. It is a free service, with an optional ‘pay as you use’ area for users wanting to send documents externally. Recipients of the SDS and other documents are able to use the service completely free of charge.
REACH Delivery requires a simple set up and registration process to enable users to send securely the latest versions of SDS directly to their customers’ desktops and receive proof of delivery and receipt as soon as customers access the documents. An audit trail of all activities related to the documents is provided to demonstrate compliance.
REACH Delivery users are also able to distribute the SDS throughout their company, free of charge, ensuring the very latest SDS are always being used across the organisation.
REACH compliance
To comply with REACH, vendors are now responsible for ensuring the delivery of SDS and associated documentation to their customers and for keeping these documents up to date in the event of any changes or clarifications. Sending the latest SDS in the post or by e-mail will be inadequate as companies will not be able to guarantee delivery, nor record proof of delivery without significant additional time, effort and cost.
According to Malcolm Carroll, director at REACH Delivery International: “The first phase of REACH registration is finalised this month and manufacturers and importers of chemicals will need to consider how they tackle their requirements around the delivery and receipt of Safety Data Sheets. They will have to ensure that up to date documents are delivered to their customers and they subsequently keep their customers updated with the very latest SDS to comply with regulations. Reach Delivery provides a single point of access for delivery and receipt of Safety Data Sheets and provides compliance support, not only to the chemical industry but to all downstream users.”
“With the completion of the first phase of REACH registration, many manufacturers and importers of chemicals are now revising their SDSs to incorporate new hazard and risk information they have learned during registration or in reclassifying their substances according to the new CLP regulation," explains Jo Lloyd, Director at REACH Ready, a subsidiary business of the Chemical Industries Association, set up in 2006 to help companies deal with the REACH regulation. "The new year will see a flurry of revised SDSs enter the supply chain and keeping track of what has been sent to which customer and ensuring ‘delivery’ will bring its own headaches – regulators have been quite clear that suppliers are now responsible for delivering revised SDSs to their customers."
REACH Delivery International is a REACH Ready approved supplier.
REACH is a new European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006). It deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances. The REACH regulations entered into force on 1 June 2007. The aim of REACH is to improve the protection of human health and the environment through the better and earlier identification of the intrinsic properties of chemical substances. The REACH Regulation gives greater responsibility to industry to manage the risks from chemicals and to provide safety information on the substances. Manufacturers and importers will be required to gather information on the properties of their chemical substances, which will allow their safe handling, and to register the information in a central database run by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki. ECHA will act as the central point in the REACH system: it will manage the databases necessary to operate the system, co-ordinate the in-depth evaluation of suspicious chemicals and run a public database in which consumers and professionals can find hazard information. (Source: REACH Delivery International.) |
