Toxic Lobby

1.2 What REACH is meant to doThe strongest promise of REACH is its potential to identify and phase out the most hazardouschemicals by requiring their substitution with safer alternatives wherever possible (“substitutionprinciple”). This solution-oriented requirement would offer a precautionary approach to protectour health and environment. It would replace the current system which is based on establishing“safe” levels of chemical exposure. Attempts to establish safe exposure levels and effectthresholds are flawed by the impossibility of determining the consequences of long-term exposureto low levels of hazardous chemicals, singly and, especially, in combination. The urgency forchange is driven by the growing evidence of contamination of the population at large, in which theblood of unborn children may already contain as many as 100 man-made industrial chemicals.Specifically, REACH is intended to:fill the gaps in our knowledge of the hazards of chemicalsonly allow chemicals onto the market if specific safety data on themare made available (principle of ‘no data - no market’)detect, limit and when needed replace hazardous substanceswith safer alternatives (‘substitution principle’)transfer the burden of proving that chemicals are not dangerous away from the publicauthorities and onto chemical manufacturers, so that the latter will have to provethe safety of their products (‘reversing the burden of proof’)ensure that there is adequate information on all chemicals and that this informationis communicated to all who come into contact with the chemicals - from usersto final consumers (‘right to know’)remove competitive disadvantages from tested new substancesas compared to untested existing substancessimplify the legislation on chemicals, replacing over 40 EU directives and regulationsThe Substitution Principle:‘the substitution of hazardous substances with safer alternatives whenever available’TOXIC LOBBY | 7