Many suppliers in Europe are unable to inform their customers about hazardous ingredients in their products as required by law. This is the result of a monitoring project by the EU market surveillance authorities, which was published recently. The experts on harmful substances at Dekra urgently advise importers, manufacturers and retailers to address the materials used in their products at an early stage.
The European market surveillance authorities have published their report on REACh Art. 33, which regulates the duty to provide information on potentially hazardous substances (SVHC). As part of the monitoring project, a total of 405 companies were inspected in 15 countries. A total of 682 articles were inspected, including clothing and footwear, wires, cables and electronic devices, floor coverings made of plastic or textiles and other rubber and plastic products.
Around 12% of the products inspected were contaminated with more than 0.1% of the so-called candidate substances. However, almost 9 out of 10 (88%) of these suppliers of contaminated articles subject to reporting requirements were unable to provide their customers with the information required under REACh Art. 33. Dekra advises affected companies to take a material-related approach: information on the material is generally readily available in the supply chain. Depending on the material, the number of SVHCs in question can be narrowed down considerably. Dekra has developed a database for this purpose that contains over 150 common materials and provides information on SVHCs for each material, graded according to the probability of occurrence. With this information, the company can focus its communication with suppliers and also make the laboratory testing of random samples more efficient.
