Formulation Services

Press Releases

BCF calls for further changes to UK REACH after small step in the right direction

The British Coatings Federation has welcomed recent proposed changes to the forthcoming UK REACH regime as a small but welcome step in the right direction. However, it has also warned that these changes alone will not be enough to prevent the coatings sector – and wider chemicals industry – from being hit hard financially under the new post-Brexit regime. This is because it does still not resolve the underlying, inherent problems with the proposed UK REACH system namely duplication of the EU REACH system and re-registration of all substances in a new database. It is this wholesale re-registration – including full data dossiers duplicating registrations already held in the EU REACH system – which will prove so bureaucratic, burdensome, and costly to business.

The easiest and seemingly best way to avoid this wholesale duplication would be for the UK and EU to negotiate a data-sharing agreement as part of the ongoing Free Trade Agreement talks. This would potentially mean the UK regulator would maintain access to data already registered in the EU REACH database and avoid it having to be re-registered in the new UK REACH system. The BCF fully supports the UK Government’s attempts to achieve this result as part of the FTA talks.

However, if that data-sharing outcome is not achieved as part of an FTA, the Government needs to go further and initiate greater changes to the proposed UK REACH system. The time extension for substance registrations simply spreads the cost of the registration requirements over a longer period: it does not reduce the overall cost to business. Those additional costs will still make it uneconomic for some lower quantity substances to be registered in the UK REACH database, making them unavailable in the UK and leaving UK companies at a significant disadvantage to their EU counterparts. Alternatively, UK businesses will have to take on the registration costs themselves to maintain access to crucial substances, again putting them at a competitive disadvantage.

Tom Bowtell, CEO of the British Coatings Federation said:

“Along with others we have been actively and positively engaged in conversations with the UK Government for well over a year. It is good to see that the Government has listened to the genuine concerns industry has raised and amended their plans for UK REACH. However, while we welcome the changes as a step in the right direction, sadly we do not believe the scale of the amendments are enough to offset the large costs and inconveniences UK business will suffer at the hands of UK REACH system as it stands.

“We hope that a data-sharing agreement on chemicals can be negotiated between the UK and EU as part of an FTA, and fully support the Government as it continues to work for that outcome: it would seem to be the most practical solution to this problem. However, if such an agreement does not come to pass then we hope the Government will continue to engage with, and listen to, the continued concerns of industry. Ultimately, we hope they realise we are not crying wolf over the impact of UK REACH on companies using chemicals like the paint, coatings and printing ink industries, and agree to make further amendments to their plans that will mitigate the effect of the new UK regulatory system on business.”

Safety, Regulatory and Safe Handling of Chemicals

Safety, Regulatory and Safe Handling of Chemicals are topics that constantly challenge the global Chemicals industry at all times.
There is a need for companies to understand the correct regulatory, classification, symbols and pictograms.  It’s not just enough to write SDSs ‘in-house’ without employing proper tools or knowledge resources or simply copy-pasting safety data sheets from competitors, suppliers or from the internet as these could be quite misleading!  Yet another requirement for companies aspiring to get various types of Quality, Compliance, other certifications is to have proper systems in place including those of Safety, Regulatory and Safe handling of Chemicals regardless of being hazardous, non-hazardous chemicals or both.

 SIAM SL, Spain based in the world famous La Rioja wine region of Spain develops IT Solutions and Software for the automatic Classification, Formulation and Authoring of Safety Data Sheets for single substances and mixtures falling under CLP and GHS regulations.  SIAM provides a highly versatile software (CHEMETER) for preparing multilingual SDS in over 55 world regulatory/languages and multilingual product labelling and provides SDS AREA, a platform for easy distribution and management of Safety Data Sheets.
Both CHEMETER and SDS AREA solutions offer major time-savings to companies over traditional methods of authoring SDSs as well as using old software since both solutions come with latest features suited to the current and evolving safety regulations in over 55 countries.   CHEMETER software is easy to understand, open and flexible and built-up in a modular fashion to suit your exact needs at any given time.

1000+ clients across 45 countries that use CHEMETER software and SDS AREA include a variety of manufacturers, exporters, importers, distributors, traders, MSME’s, OEM’s into all kinds of Chemicals, API’s and Plastics and coming from all walks of industry including CASE, Petrochemicals, Pigments, Resins & Additives, Dyes & Dispersions, Textile and Leather Chemicals, Cleaning & Construction Chemicals, Lubes & Greases, Cosmetics, Solvents, Rubber, Plastics, Detergents, Flavours & Fragrances, Water Treatment Chemicals, Agro Chemicals, Monomers and Polymers, Resins and more.

Come 1st November 2020 and CHEMETER software will offer its users an additional module specially designed to help users manage the EU’s new regulation of UFI (Unique Formula Identifier) Code in order to comply with the EU’s new Poison Centre Notification (PCN) requirements for hazardous mixtures being supplied into the EU.   The module automatically creates PCN dossiers for harmonised notifications and within a few minutes, users can upload files with all necessary documentation, automatic UFI code generation, toxicological information, complete chemical composition, etc.   It is a simplified and easy step-by-step process and significant time-saver compared to the 2-3 hours odd it otherwise takes to generate PCN for a single product using the official portal.

You can get more information about SIAM’s Regulatory IT Solutions on https://www.siam-it.com or by sending an email to:

Nirav Banker
(UK, Asia & Middle-East Business Head)

Email: n.banker@siam-it.com
UK Mobile: (+44) 747 096 4875

Why it’s time to embrace digital colour masters

A combination of digital standards and industry-leading instruments enables businesses to reduce costs and wastage across the entire supply chain by getting the colour of every component right first time.

Investment in R&D excellence from quality control instrument specialist BYK-Gardner enables companies across the globe to achieve consistent measurement and control of important characteristics such as colour. And not just colour. BYK-Gardner instruments measure many other characteristics such as gloss, orange peel, multi-angled colour, sparkle, graininess, colour fastness, cloudiness, transparency, clarity and haziness.

This is achieved through industry-leading LED illuminated instruments with optimal inter-instrument agreement and enables true full digital masters to be introduced for all these characteristics. The digital masters can easily be distributed through the supply chain making a digital approval process possible at every stage, in every location from beginning to end.

Guarantee repeatable product quality across time and space
Digital masters include spectral data and client requirements, while also allowing automatic colour identification where appropriate. Measurement tolerances and an instant pass/fail can be included on both hand-held and robotic installations. The result is self-approval throughout the supply chain and improved harmony between products to guarantee a high right-first-time rate.

Working with major manufacturers across many industries, the benefits from reductions in waste and delay as well as improvements in communication of measurement data, to productivity, quality and sustainability deliver a complete return on investment – the instruments can pay for themselves!
Digital masters can be sent by e-mail as an xml file to locations anywhere in the world. They have applications within industries including automotive, coatings, plastics, printing inks leather and even wine.

Blagden distributes BYK-Gardner instruments to companies across the United Kingdom. To find out how your business can benefit from the use of these instruments in combination with digital masters, call Simon Moss at Blagden on 01959 560818 or email.

Please note: Information provided here is given in good faith and without liability. It is intended for guidance only. Users are advised to conduct their own independent examination of the product to ascertain its suitability for incorporation into processes or products. Users should ensure that the use of the product complies with all pertinent current legislation. We guarantee to supply to specification, not performance.

Exhibitors

Company NameStand

2M Services

400

Banner Chemicals Ltd

404

Cornelius Group Plc

317

Datacolor AG Europe

313

Devine Chemicals

532

DKSH Great Britain

321

Grolman Ltd

616

Hauschild SpeedMixer® UK

301

IMCD UK Limited

208

Lake Coatings

432

Lisam Systems

101

Maker

500

Rakem Group

500

Safic Alcan UK Ltd

300

SIAM S.L.

220

Tennants Distribution Ltd

624