Read the DyStar Sustainability Report 2011...

Product Stewardship
For us, product stewardship means responsibility to continuously reduce
our products’ safety, health and environmental impacts. Product
stewardship is DyStar brand’s core strength.
Apart from our own research and development efforts to develop new
products that reduce health, safety and environmental impacts
for customers, our product stewardship program has included compliance
with international legislations and standards such as REACH and GHS
(the United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification,
Labelling and Packaging of Chemicals).
REACH Implementation Update
DyStar is well prepared for the 2013 registrations
REACH (the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of
Chemicals) is the European Community Regulation on chemicals and
their safe use to protect the environment and health, which came into
effect June 1, 2007. REACH continues to be the most demanding
international chemicals legislation. REACH implementation has been a
top priority at DyStar from the beginning.
We successfully completed the REACH registration Phase-I in 2010.
DyStar is now concentrating on Phase-II of REACH, tonnage band
100 – 1000 t/a, a range where the registration of a significantly higher
number of dyes will have to be managed before mid-2013. DyStar is
well prepared to meet the deadline of May 31, 2013.
The REACH Regulation places greater responsibility on the industry to
manage the risks from chemicals and to provide safety information on
the substances. The regulation requires manufacturers and importers
to gather information on the properties of their chemical substances,
to facilitate their safe handling, and to register the information in a
central database run by the European Chemicals Agency. Dyes and
chemical suppliers face an enormous task in complying with REACH.
The legislation requires all suppliers of dyes and chemicals who produce
inside the European Economic Area, or import into Europe, to pre-register
and then register the substances within the deadlines laid down in
the Regulation for the various tonnage thresholds. In October 2008, the European
Chemical Agency published for the first time a Candidate List of Substances
of Very High Concern for Consultation under REACH. Since then the
list has been updated and amended several times and currently includes
84 chemicals or chemical groups. We are already in a position to declare
that DyStar products do not intentionally contain any of the 84 substance
groups that have been proposed in the ECHA Candidate List of Substances.
In Phase-III, registration deadline for produced or traded substances in
quantities of one tonne or more per year is June 1, 2018.
DyStar’s strategic planning of new and on-going activities also consider
the REACH impact. We proactively contact the European Chemical
Agency to submit all relevant information ensuring REACH compliance.
We intend to register all individual substances contained in its products
within the respective deadlines. DyStar has successfully completed
many registrations of new chemical substances according to chemical
regulations worldwide. We are proud to be the owners of a comprehensive
archive of toxicological testing reports on a large number of dyes.
REACH and DyStar customers
REACH has placed greater responsibility on textile producers for all
stages in their supply chain. Non-European manufacturers and their
importers who export to the EU are required to comply with REACH.
In the course of implementation, supply chain communication is one
of the major challenges of REACH. DyStar has taken steps to strengthen
communication with customers and offer necessary support. DyStar
has launched an online service portal for customers where they can
inform the company of their intended uses and to enable them to
report on applications currently not covered. By using our products,
customers can have confidence that textiles imported into Europe are
REACH-compliant.
DyStar R&D
Research and Development (R&D) is one of the core values at DyStar
and is part of the corporate DNA. We have an active Research & Development
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