After UK Transition: Working with Chemicals - Episode - 5 - CLP, REACH, PIC and Industry voices

In this instalment, we invite two industry voices to discuss changes to Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP), Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and Prior Informed Consent (PIC) regulations. We also explore the actions they have taken to keep their businesses moving following the end of the UK transition period.

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If you have any concerns regarding UK Transition and the changes to REACH and CLP regulations, contact HSE at the earliest opportunity via ukreach.clp@hse.gov.uk.

If you have any questions regarding UK REACH enforcement, please contact the HSE at the earliest opportunity via CRDEnforcement@hse.gov.uk.

Podcast Transcript

Good day and welcome to episode 6 of the HSE podcast with me Mick Ord. Over the past few months we’ve been discussing the key regulatory changes which have been implemented now that the UK has left the European Union.  In the last episode we heard from businesses about how they had been preparing for changes to PPP (Plant Protection Products) and BPR – Biocides Products Regulations, in the run up to 2021.

This time round we’re looking at how people have been preparing for the changes to CLP, that’s the Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures, REACH – that’s the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals, and PIC – Prior Informed Consent, now known as GB PIC, which concerns the import and export of hazardous chemicals.

John Mackenzie, Head of Regulatory Affairs at Thomas Swan in County Durham, is back with us I’m pleased to say, as is a new guest on the podcast Dr Chris Howick from Inovyn Chlorvinyls in Runcorn.  They produce mainly chlorine, caustic soda and chlorinated derivatives from plants in the UK and all over Europe. They employ a total of 750 people.  I started by firstly asking Chris about the challenges his company faced in the run up to 2021 as they prepared for the new GB regulations.

Chris:

Well I think it’s been an interesting journey from the very announcement of the referendum result.  It caused a lot of discussion in the early days but I think bit by bit as regulations started to come in the UK and preparedness from the regulatory agencies in the EU progressed, it was a little easier to see exactly what we had to do.  I think we had a few stop start processes with the no deal scenarios because we had to get ready to transfer REACH registrations and Biocides registrations across to a European entity or an ongoing European entity for the initial leaving dates and of course we had two or three leaving dates in the end and so we then had to cancel those transfers to bring them back to ensure that they didn’t transfer.  So it’s been quite eventful in that respect but I think to a certain extent it didn’t matter whether there was a free trade deal or not because we were going  to have to go through these actions anyway, so I think it gave us a little bit of extra time preparing it and I think now that that is done we can concentrate on the actions for ensuring that we are compliant with the new UK regimes where there’s a little bit of a grace period before the first sets of deadlines come up with that.

Mick:

John Mackenzie, was that a similar scenario at your company, in terms of ensuring that your products are REACH compliant?

John:

Indeed it was, yes very similar.  I remember contacting some of our suppliers, the smaller guys especially and kind of like the rabbit in the headlights reaction from them like – what you mean we’ve got to change and do things that we didn’t do before, but now it’s gone from there to their saying yes, that’s fine no problem.  So we’ve come on a huge journey from the referendum in 2016 wasn’t it – to now by the time this comes out – we will have left and it’s come from not knowing very much at all about what we are going to have to do to being pretty comfortable that we are on top of things. So yes, it’s been quite a journey.

Mick:

Chris, for you in terms of Classification, Labelling and Packaging, CLP, any observations about how the transition period has gone in that particular section?

Chris:

I think it’s been a little more straight forward, than the REACH situation, the advantage is although we now have two regulatory regimes, we manufacture at sites throughout the EU but we have a significant presence in the UK and so as far the UK manufacturing assets is concerned, we now have two regulatory regimes, one in the UK and one in the EU.  The advantage is, of course, that we start with the same situation for classification and labelling  because clearly on the 31 of December 2020, the UK had the European CLP regulation and this now transfers to the UK one.  It remains to be seen whether there is differentiation and whether it happens and then to what extent it happens but there are some subtleties in that clearly when we supply companies in the EU from our UK site, those companies often become the importer and so they carry some additional responsibilities by importing material from outside of the EU into the EU and it works the other way round as well.  If we import from one of our sites on the Continent, we now have to ensure that there’s reference to the UK or I should say GB classification regulation there as well and as I say at the moment, we start with the same classification so it’s a technical or administrative task, but we just need to see how that develops in the future and whether the UK will deviate or have a different opinion on a case by case or chemical by chemical basis.

Mick:

And how did you know that the various actions you describe were required?  Where did you go for that information?

Chris:

Well, we’re very fortunate in that we play an active role in the Chemical Industries Association and also on the polymers side from the British Plastics Federation, so we’re active in those two trade associations for the chemicals and polymers side of our business.  They’ve both been a very good source of information so the regular meetings and organisations of webinars with input from the UK regulators.  On the European side actions, there has been some good, detailed guidance documents on the European Chemicals Agency website as well as the change in obligations from companies and the particular guidance on how you had to navigate through what’s termed the REACH IT, which is the Agency’s submission portal for chemicals as well as what the obligations for companies were for that, particularly on the REACH side rather than the CLP side.  And then, of course, we did get the statutory instruments which of course are phenomenally difficult to read because they refer to the original European legislation.  They only really highlight what  changes by making them a UK regulation.  I think companies, particularly on the continent that found the UK Statutory Instrument thinking they were going to find how they had to comply and it’s  very, very difficult to read even if English is your first language.   I think it’s the guidance that goes with it now and certainly the Government website has got a lot more information on and the HSE and Defra have done some very good roadshows over the last two or three years that have been very informative and I think recordings of those are still available on the internet if companies want to catch up with those.  Those were particularly useful and I would say a lot more informative in the early stages than the initial guidance, but certainly we’ve now got some good documents from the UK regulators as well. 

Mick:

What about the situation in terms of the export and import of hazardous chemicals – PIC?

Chris:

The Prior Informed Consent side has taken us a little longer to set the systems up because we weren’t sure exactly how the UK was going to do it but with materials transferring between our sites in the EU and our UK sites and vice versa, of course what would just be a seamless transportation before the end of the transition period, now has to be licensed and because the UK is now out, we did have to essentially apply for licenses before the end of the transition period in order to ensure that we had the necessary licenses for export.  ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency work on a 35 day lead time for PIC applications, so those all had to be submitted well in time for the end of the year to ensure that they were in place. 

Going the other way, the UK system is more based on seeking permission and authorisation via email.  The UK has a system which is fit for purpose because of the smaller size of the market.  I don’t think it’s gone for this extensive IT system that there is on the European side, but I think we’ll see how that goes in the HSE and the Competent Authorities in the UK, I think we’ll keep that under review as to whether it needs to be expanded, but again we had to set those up to be ready for the exports to go in January.  We are confident that things are in place and we’ll review it as the New Year progresses.

Mick:

John, PIC doesn’t necessarily apply to you does it?  What about CLP and REACH – have you got anything to add?

John:

In terms of preparations we’ve made do you mean?  Technically, we are a medium sized enterprise and we don’t have any footprint in the EU, we don’t have an office or another site so what we had to do was to set up a relationship with what’s called an Only Representative or OR for short in the EU so w