Legislation

Regulation of Hazardous Solvents

Increasingly stringent environmental and safety legislation is rendering the use of many well-known, but hazardous solvents increasingly difficult and expensive. Ultimately, many of these solvents will be phased out entirely, thus replacement products need to be found.

REACH
REACH (the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemical substances), is the most substantial piece of legislation ever in the EU and has caused a mass of activity in the search for alternative solvents that are more environmentally benign.

REACH will restrict the use of certain solvents that "pose an unacceptable risk to human health and the environment". Selected other solvents will be classed as being "of very high concern" to human health and the environment. Authorization procedures will ultimately lead to the removal of these chemicals from the marketplace.

Evaluation of Alternative Solvents
To comply with REACH and other chemical and safety legislation, alternative solvents need to be evaluated. However, understandably there are concerns that replacement solvents will not perform as well as existing products.

This is where our solventS service can be applied to identify non-hazardous materials that possess the required properties for your application. We can work closely with you to ensure that process effectiveness can be maintained or even improved.

"We can identify process specific legislation compliant solvents"