Swedish retail chains are breaching the chemicals legislation

Several large Swedish chain stores do not follow the 45-day rule in Reach. This is shown by a survey carried out by the chemistry consulting firm Explizit.

According to article 33 of Reach, a company needs to answer the question if candidate substances are present in a product within 45 days. Explizit staff posed as consumers while visiting a large number of shops, at least two from each chain, and posed the question “Are there any substances present in this product which are on the candidate list?”.

Only eight of the 20 retail chains managed to comply with the legislation and provide a response within 45 days – Teknikmagasinet, BR, Equip, Akademibokhandeln, Ö&B, XXL, Naturkompaniet and Jula. Another five companies were able to respond, but only partially or were late. Seven companies did not respond at all, replied to all the wrong things or did not even know what the Reach legislation was. – It’s been almost 10 years since the introduction of REACH and Article 33. One would expect that these companies should be more informed. It is distressing that so many companies did not even answer, says Explizits chemicals expert Peter Sjölund to MiljöRapporten. The review was presented today at MiljöRapporten’s conference Chemicals Management Summit.