February 17, 2023, ECHA has released two substances that are proposed to be identified as substances of very high concern (SVHC) for public consultation. Related enterprises may make comments on the two substances before April 3, 2023.

On January 12, 2023, the Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration supplemented a total of 15 chemical substances to the concerned chemical list in the following 3 categories: 5 substances with concerns about food safety risks; 2 new psychoactive substances (NPS); and 8 explosive precursors.

On February 9, the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee tweeted that it has endorsed the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), a measure aimed at responding to climate change and preventing carbon leakage, with 63 votes in favor, 7 votes against and 7 votes in abstention.

What you need to know about the South Korean MSDS submission process and CBI protection

On January 13, 2023, five countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden – submitted a restriction proposal to ECHA on Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) under REACH. On February 7, ECHA published the detailed restriction proposal of roughly 10,000 PFASs, which is the broadest restriction proposal in history. Next, ECHA will start a six-month public consultation on PFASs on March 22.

The most important step in hazardous chemical compliance in China is to determine whether chemicals are hazardous or whether they are listed in the Catalog of Hazardous Chemicals (hereinafter referred to as the Catalog). Enterprises must obtain an operation permit or license of hazardous chemicals (in short as HC Operation Permit) if their chemicals are listed in the Catalog. Related enterprises may leave a message on the website of the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) if there are any questions about hazardous chemicals management to get public replies from the Ministry (as shown below).

On December 29, 2022, the General Rules for the Hazardous Chemicals Warehouse Storage (GB 15603-2022) was officially released and will enter into force in China on July 1, 2023. It will repeal and replace GB 16603-1995. GB 15603-2022 is a mandatory national standard. It is of great significance to the safety and management of hazardous chemicals as it provides a universal and basic standard for the storage of hazardous chemicals.

On January 17, 2023, ECHA added nine substances to the Candidate List of SVHCs. The Candidate List of substances of very high concern (SVHCs) now contains 233 substances that may have serious effects on people or the environment.

When Brexit was enacted and the UK left the EU on January 31, 2020, it took certain regulations that were in force and wrote them directly into GB regulations. From that point forward, Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) began adhering to the GB Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Chemicals Regulation (GB CLP). However, the Northern Ireland agreement means that European Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (EU CLP) is still required in Northern Ireland. It should be noted that any updates to EU CLP that took place after January 31, 2020, do not apply to GB CLP.

On February 7, 2021, Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Ecology and Environment released a notice regarding Strengthening the Supervision on Enterprises in Environmental Management of New Chemicals, in which the Bureau mentioned that it is to enhance the daily environmental management of new chemicals, improve the on-site supervision of environmental enforcement on new chemicals, implement policies and regulations on new chemicals and conduct law enforcement inspections annually.