Who will be impacted by REACH? The short answer is everyone involved in the supply chain. While the bulk of the administrative effort will fall upon those companies which Manufacture or Import substances in the EU, there will be consequences for “downstream users” which purchase substances from these Manufacturers / Importers as well as for non-EU manufacturers. 

The Manufacturer/Importer is responsible for compliance with the REACH regulation. The Downstream User (or purchaser) of substances must ensure that their use is registered by the Manufacturer/Importer and may need to provide information on potential exposure to the substance as a result of their use. Non-EU suppliers of chemicals or blends of chemicals (called preparations in REACH) or, to some extent, even finished products (called Articles under REACH) will need to ensure that the products which they export to Europe are compliant with REACH.

Is anyone not impactedThere are a number of exemptions from REACH which, at first sight, imply that certain products and certain industries are not in any way impacted. On closer inspection, this is rarely so. If not chemically modified, Crude Oil, Natural Gas and LPG are exempt from REACH – except LPG produced as a by-product of a refinery operation. To some extent, fuels are exempt from Authorization – but not from Registration.

Polymers are exempt from registration and evaluation but are subject to other REACH obligations. Monomers contained in polymers and substances chemically bound to them are subject to registration if they meet the specific conditions set out in REACH. This means that the importer of a polymer might have to register the monomers and substances chemically bound to it. If the imported product is a polymeric preparation the additives might also have to be registered.

Intermediates (substances that are manufactured for and consumed in or used for chemical processing in order to be transformed into another substance) are exempt from REACH if they are not isolated (i.e. not intentionally removed from the chemical processing). Isolated intermediates (i.e. isolated on the same site) or transported isolated intermediates are subject to a reduced registration dossier if they meet certain conditions of control. REACH also exempts from Authorisation intermediates which are isolated on site or for transport.