ECHA recently announced that it had received 3,114,835 notifications of 24,529 substances for the Classification and Labeling Inventory by January 3. By this deadline, industry had to notify the classification and labeling of all chemical substances that are hazardous or subject to registration under the REACH regulation and placed on the EU market.

“This is a perfect start for the International Year of Chemistry,” said Geert Dancet, executive director. “The Classification and Labeling Inventory, which will be publicly available later this year, will significantly improve safety by providing up-to-date information on all the hazardous substances that are on the EU market today.”

The Classification, Labeling and Packaging regulation relates to chemical substances and mixtures. It introduces into the EU the criteria of the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System for classifying and labeling chemicals. One of the aims of the CLP regulation is to improve the protection of human health and the environment by providing criteria for defining when a substance or mixture displays properties that lead to its classification as hazardous.

CLP applies to manufacturers, importers, users or distributors of chemical substances or mixtures. They must classify, label and package any substance or mixture, regardless of its annual tonnage, in accordance with the regulation.

The largest number of the notifications, over 800,000, came from Germany. Over 500,000 notifications were submitted from the UK, and nearly 300,000 from France. All together, over 6,600 companies notified at least one substance.

For additional details, visithttp://echa.europa.eu/clp/info_clp_companies_en.asp.