The European Commission's REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) requires manufacturers and importers that annually distribute more than one ton of chemical substances per year in the EU to collect and provide comprehensive testing and risk assessment information for each substance. The directive is intended to apply to about 30,000 of the 100,000 substances contained in common daily-use products. The Council of Environment Ministers formally adopted REACH at the Environment Council on December 18, 2006, and the regulations entered into force on June 1, 2007.
The new legislation REACH presents new regulations covering the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals. REACH aims to encourage progressive transitions from the most dangerous chemicals to safer chemicals by increasing knowledge of chemical substances, improving safety, and promoting technological innovation to produce dramatic improvements in people's health and the environmental protection. The new regulations arose from concern about adverse effects chemical substances may be having on human fertility and genetic heredity,
birth defects, and substances that do not break down after human ingestion or that accumulate in the soil. On September 18, 1981, the EU established "new chemical" and "existing chemical" categories and implemented a system in which public administrations assess all "new chemicals" and confirm product safety based on manufacturer and importer safety assessment. Although the administration was engaged to conduct safety assessments and implement regulatory measures, the administration only had the capacity to review a limited number of the estimated 100,000 "existing chemicals" on the market. In addition, the administration was required to prove the necessity of any regulatory measures, and coordinating the processes among the EU nations took much time. The new regulation addresses these areas with the key feature of an "obligation of manufacturers and importers (that annually distribute more than one ton of chemical substances in the EU) to register "existing chemicals" as well as "new chemicals" and thereby transfers the risk valuation regarding the existing chemical substances to the business side.