Readers' letters

10 November 2008 00:00  [Source: ICB]

Whyte Chemicals is struggling to preregister its products using the collapsing Reach-IT website. We print its letter to Gunter Verheugen, EU Commissioner for enterprise and industry, pleading for more time

GIVE US MORE TIME, OR MANY WILL GO UNDER

This letter aims to highlight the problems being caused by the inadequacies of the Reach-IT system managed by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The six-month pre-registration process has just a few more weeks to run and, if companies do not (or cannot) complete the procedure by November 30, they will be unable to take advantage of the Reach phase-in period.

The consequences for companies are stark. They will either have to remove their products from the market - which could cause major disruption to the chemical supply chain or they will have to complete full Reach registration for their substances, which will impose massive additional costs as we enter an economic downturn. These are both unintended consequences of the new Reach legislation and result solely from the deficiencies of the Reach IT system.

As a company, we began preregistering our products on the first day that the Reach-IT platform was opened. At that stage, it was a simple process taking a few minutes per product to complete. As time progressed and traffic on the ECHA website increased, the process became slower and slower. By mid-October, Reach-IT began crashing with frustrating regularity. Despite having one member of staff dedicated to preregistration, he was only able to preregister 25 products during the course of last week. We have around 1,000 products to preregister and at this rate, we will not meet the deadline and our market will be lost.

The ECHA has tried to rectify these problems, but with only very limited success. The agency has clearly massively underestimated the level of preregistrations. Our trade association, the Chemical Business Association (CBA) has called for a six-week extension to the preregistration process. This additional period would compensate industry for the fact that the bulk preregistration process within Reach-IT (which accounts for 70% of all preregistrations) was six weeks late in becoming available. The ECHA, while appreciating the problems and their potential consequences, said that it is powerless to help in terms of extending preregistration as this requires a political decision.

The inability to preregister a product effectively takes away your market for that substance. This not only affects the supplier, but also the downstream user. The cumulative impact on European business could plunge us further into recession. I am therefore asking for your assistance to resolve the problem, or at least protect the industry from its consequences. This is an urgent matter. I am sure that many other companies are in a similar position to ourselves and may have to cease trading at the end of November.

Melvyn Whyte
Chairman
Whyte Chemicals

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