Chemicals management will be main focus - Socma

09 March 2007 19:39  [Source: ICIS news]

BALTIMORE, Maryland (ICIS news)--The future of chemicals management will remain a central industry concern for many years to come and can only be met by continuing and expanding collaboration among manufacturers, a leading industry official said on Friday.

 

Joe Acker, president of the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (Socma), said current chemicals management policy is seen in two main models. 

 

One is the command-and-control approach, perhaps most clearly articulated in the European Union’s (EU) new Reach programme. The other is a collaborative effort involving producers, government and other stakeholders.

 

Reach is the EU’s new substance management system for the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals. Given final EU approval late last year, Reach will begin a multi-year phase-in process beginning in June this year. 

 

Many chemical industry figures have warned that Reach will be costly and ineffective and could cause serious harm to the economies of Europe and its trading partners.

 

“The best chance for positive change,” Acker told executives at the Socma-sponsored GlobalChem regulatory conference, “is the US model, with government and industry, suppliers and customers involved in a market-based collaboration.”

 

He noted the US high production volume (HPV) testing programme. That programme has produced detailed analyses of some 3,500 chemical products in general use. It was the result of an entirely voluntary industry effort in collaboration with the US Environmental Protection Agency, Acker said. 

 

“I just don’t think ... that many HPV chemicals would have been tested if this had been a regulatory approach,” he said.

 

He said that it was critical for the chemicals industry to broaden its collaborative efforts to bring in still more supply chain partners to help establish a consistent, science-based approach to “the greening of chemistry”.

 

Acker said the US collaborative approach would be needed to help meet the challenge of Reach, other emerging regulatory programmes, and to guide the move to green chemistry.

 

“This issue is not going away,” Acker said, “and it is going to be the centre of industry discussion for many years to come.”

 

Co-sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, the three-day GlobalChem conference concludes on Friday.

By: Joe Kamalick
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