Chemicals play a major part in all our lives: for example, in clothing and consumer goods, pest control, increasing agricultural yields, making machinery run efficiently and combating disease. Most chemicals have beneficial effects on our lives and can be made and used without harm. However, they can also have unintended harmful effects on people (workers, consumers or others just going about their everyday lives) and on the environment. A variety of legislation seeks to ensure that these possible harmful effects are avoided.
The Notification of New Substance Regulations 1993 (NONS 93) are a set of regulations that seek to protect people and the environment from the possible harmful effects of new substances and to create a 'single market' in new substances across the European Community. NONS 93 aims to identify the possible risks posed to people and the environment from placing new substances on the market. It does this by obtaining information about them in a systematic way so that users may be made aware of the dangers and if necessary, recommendations for control can be made.
The regulations implement part of an EC Directive, commonly known as the Seventh Amendment Directive (92/32/EEC). The Directive is called this as it is the seventh time the EC's Dangerous Substances Directive (67/548/EEC), originally adopted in 1967, has been amended. NONS 93 replaces the Notification of New Substances Regulations 1982.
The Seventh Amendment is a single market directive. This means it has been adopted by the EC to lay down common trading requirements between EC Member States. The Directive helps create this single market by ensuring that notification requirements are the same in all EC Member States and that a notification accepted in one Member State is valid for all of them; i.e. notification requirements are harmonised across the EC. This should save notifiers time and money and make trade between Member States easier.
The regulations apply to any person who supplies a new substance either as such or contained in a preparation. This includes selling it, lending it to someone else, passing it on, giving it away or importing it into the EC. Obviously this will affect a large group of people and if you are involved in chemicals manufacture or import you are likely to be subject to these regulations at some time.
The regulations are administered in each member state by a body known as the "competent authority" (CA). In the UK this is the Health & Safety Executive and the Environment Agency acting jointly.
The CA has a number of functions under the Regulations.
The key functions of the CA are: