Siam participates in SURFEX LIVE 2020 with a webinar on European Harmonized Toxicological Notification
A few weeks ago, our teammates Pilar Ortiz-Alías and Nirav Banker were part of the SURFEX LIVE event with its webinar “Poison Centre Notifications (PCN): The UFI Code and European Harmonised Toxicological Notification”, in which they addressed the obligation, according to Article 45 of the CLP Regulation, of companies placing hazardous mixtures to provide information about it to the relevant national bodies, that make this information available to poison centres so that they can give advice to the citizens or medical personnel in the event of an emergency. The objective of this system, is to guarantee a high level of protection of human health and the free circulation of substances and mixtures within the EU.
During the webinar both explained that Harmonisation in this case means a ONE UNIQUE information set with a ONE UNIQUE notification format (Poison Centres Notification format PCN). The result of both obligations is the Unique Formula Identifier (UFI) a 16 alphanumeric digits UFI CODE, that will be needed in the Submission of information and Label or packaging.
This way, all products labelled with the same UFI need to share the same mixture composition, and the responsibility of UFI management relies on is the company, that will need to submit information to the appointed body in each Member State where they place the product on the market in their official language/s (some countries accept English too), and fees are also defined by country.
During the session, our colleagues answered key questions such as:
Who is affected by the new regulation?
All mixture classified with health and or physical hazards need to be notified, and the obligation lies within the EU legal entity/supplier of the mixture.
When?
Current national requirements are still in force until 1 January 2025 for mixtures that has already notified if they remain the same. However, all new products (those whichs has never been previously notified) and current notified products submitted to changes to their mixture composition, toxicological properties or product identifiers must notify the new information before placing them to the market.
It implies a complex procedure which companies using chemical mixtures should get used, since it will become mandatory in the coming years. Luckily, at Siam we have been working for a long time to add functionality that allows our Chemeter software to process notifications automatically, so you don't have to worry about anything.
If you want more information about the European Harmonized Toxicological Notification, you can access of our website where we detail the process: