News

Glyphosate: no change proposed to hazard classification

Our Committee for Risk Assessment (RAC) agrees to keep glyphosate’s current classification as causing serious eye damage and being toxic to aquatic life. Based on a wide-ranging review of scientific evidence, the committee again concludes that classifying glyphosate as a carcinogen is not justified.

More | Q&As on glyphosate

REACH

RAC backs restricting lead in outdoor shooting and fishing

RAC supports restricting the use of lead in ammunition for hunting, outdoor sports shooting and in fishing. However, it recommends a shorter transition time to phase out lead gunshot in hunting.

Our Committee for Socio-Economic Analysis (SEAC) is expected to agree its draft opinion in early June before finalising its opinion in December.

More | Q&As

Assessments of two substance groups published

Assessments of regulatory needs are now available for:

Methylene diphenyl ureas; and
Aralkylamines

To get a list of the substances covered in each group and access the report, you can filter the list by group name.

Assessment of regulatory needs

Occupational exposure limits

Reminder: Consultation on cobalt and inorganic cobalt compounds

We have launched a consultation on a scientific report for occupational exposure limits on cobalt and inorganic cobalt compounds.

The deadline for comments is 10 June 2022.

Give comments | OEL pages

European Chemicals Legislation Finder

EUCLEF updated with new pieces of legislation

The regulation on medical devices and the fifth list of occupational exposure limits have been added to the European Chemicals Legislation Finder (EUCLEF).

Regulation (EU) 2017/745 on medical devices repeals and replaces Council Directive 93/42/EEC on medical devices, and Council Directive 90/385/EEC on active implantable medical devices is kept in EUCLEF for information.

The EUCLEF Helpdesk is also available to support those with questions on the new pieces of legislation.

EUCLEF

Supply chain communication

Updated CropLife Europe use maps published

The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA), has been renamed as CropLife Europe (CLE). All elements of the use maps have been updated to reflect this change.

The following files are now available on ECHA's use maps library:

Use maps (Excel and Chesar format);
SPERCs factsheets and briefing notes;
Use maps elements: history of changes; and
SPERCs, SCEDs and SWEDs cleaning files.

All Chesar files are compatible with Chesar versions starting from 3.6.

ECHA Use Maps Library

Nanomaterials

Nanopinion: Urinary microRNA-based early cancer detection using nanowire-based devices

Read the latest Nanopinion guest column from Dr Yasui Takao on using nanowire devices to extract microRNAs from urine to distinguish cancer patients from healthy individuals and improve the early detection of cancer.

Nanopinion

ECHA

Website issues resolved

Our website has experienced performance issues over the past two weeks (17-31 May 2022).

Pages have been slow to load, and occasionally the entire website has been unresponsive.

The issues have now been identified and fixed by our technical teams, and the website is now fully operational again.

The problems have not caused any data loss or security breach.

In the next weeks, we continue to carefully monitor the system behaviour to ensure the performance and stability of our website.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience during the last two weeks.

Events

REACH Committee meeting in June – agenda available

The next meeting of the European Commission's REACH Committee will take place on 21-22 June 2022. The agenda is available on the Commission’s website.

More | Agenda