The warning comes as the recycling sector continues to lobby European Union officials to move metals and waste paper away from waste legislation – waste products are usually exempt from the REACH chemicals rules. A decision on the proposal could come by mid-2008.
The processor has not produced a new substance so the processor does not have to go for registration, but it is different if the substances have not been previously registered.
Dr Bruno Stephan, Legerlotz Laschet
Last week the German waste paper industry attended its annual conference in Dusseldorf, organised by trade association the BVSE. Delegates heard from BVSE president Hubert Neuhaus of the potential legislative burden posed by the REACH regulation should waste paper (or recovered paper as it is often known) be moved out of waste legislation.
However, the conference was given some reassurance by both a top German environment official and a leading German chemicals lawyer that the sector would not face too many extra chemicals controls were it to be moved away from waste legislation.
Dr Christiane Markard, Federal Environment Agency director for environmental health and ecosystems, told delegates that: “Waste materials are not in REACH and in 2008 we could have a new definition of the waste regulations, so if waste paper as a substance is not considered waste we have to consider REACH.”
The official went on to offer some encouragement to delegates that the waste paper sector will not be faced with the full REACH controls, and said: “We are trying to come to a satisfactory solution for everybody.”
She explained that the significance of REACH was that it was not the article – such as waste paper – that would have to be registered but the substances involved at the beginning of the product.
Dr Markard said that “downstream producers” who use the material, such as “storing, filling, producing, dealers, merchants and commercial users” do not have to be registered. However, she pointed out that this would not be the case with waste paper imported because paperwork about the original material might not exist and there would also be difficulties where waste paper was “being distributed” with other materials, such as with compost which had happened in the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Chemicals lawyer Dr Bruno Stephan, of Cologne-based Legerlotz Laschet, told the BVSE conference that the issue was complicated over when paper processors and collectors have to go for registration. “Question one is, is this a process of doing something but not using it, i.e. not involved in manufacture? The reprocessors use the waste, and as downstream users are not obliged to go for registration. Waste is almost totally exempt under REACH. Question two is that in REACH, if the waste definition comes to an end, we will have to check on whether it is a substance?”
Then, Dr Stephan highlighted the point that users of a substance should be able to get original data from when it was first made, assuming that this data existed.
He continued: “There is another exemption in REACH – if at some stage your waste paper becomes a secondary raw material, no longer waste paper, then article 2 subsection D means you won't have to come up with separate data registration as this has happened in an earlier life. So if you can get this you won't have to go for registration because the processor has not produced a new substance so the processor does not have to go for registration, but it is different if the substances have not been previously registered.”
In summary, Dr Stephan is believed to have confirmed that waste paper would be exempt as long as data existed in the EU about the original material (when it was first classified as a substance).
However, the lawyer echoed the concerns of Dr Markard about imported material and voiced caution that the substance details will not always exist in these circumstances, especially if the paper is imported from outside the EU.
He said: “We will not always have details. If paper is imported from outside the EU, as a secondary raw material, article 2 section 7, the substances won't have received registration. Without data the substance cannot be placed on the markets.”
What is REACH?
REACH is a European Union regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of CHemicals. It came into force on June 1 2007 and replaced several European Directives and Regulations with a single system.
UK advice is that: “A major part of REACH is the requirement for manufacturers or importers of substances to register them with a central European Chemicals Agency. A registration package will be supported by a standard set of data on that substance. The amount of data required is proportionate to the amount of substance manufactured or supplied.”
President Neuhaus told his audience, which included a number of UK waste paper traders and merchants, that: “We need to be very alert – recycling and the liability issues are the core issues here.”
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