Today EFCC submitted its position in reply to the public consultation on the European Commission proposal for the revision of EU legislation on hazard classification, labelling and packaging of chemicals (CLP).

In its reply EFCC pointed out that the new formatting rules for the labels are unnecessarily inflexible and specific and would not lead to significant improvement of the hazard communication. The re-design and re-labelling of packages takes time and costs money, and the disposal of the removed and unused labels would have a negative impact on the environment. Nevertheless, EFCC welcomed the introduction of digital labelling for some elements of the labels, however, considered that the benefits of digitalisation were not fully explored in the proposal. 

EFCC raised its concerns regarding the harmonised classification and labelling proposals for a group of similar substances, assuming that such similarity allows for similar classification of all substances in the group. It called for grouping to be done on the basis of sound scientific principles. Harmonised classifications should be assigned only where this is justified based on a comprehensive review of the weight of scientific evidence.

On behalf of the construction chemicals industry EFCC highlighted that sufficient time should be allowed for implementing the changes of the labelling in accordance with the new CLP.