REACH - a permit to trade:

• REACH ensures a high level of protection of health and the environment and gives EUEuropean Union -based manufacturersManufacturer: means any natural or legal person established within the Community who manufactures a substance within the Community; and importsImport: means the physical introduction into the customs territory of the Community; full responsibility for substances that they put on the market.
  
• REACH is a Regulation that entered into force across the EU on June 1 2007 and covers all substances imported or placed on the market in quantities of ≥1 tonne per year per registrant.
  
• The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), located in Helsinki, will manage the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction processes for substances to ensure consistency across the EU.
• REACH compliance is the responsibility of each EU legal entity involved in the manufacture or import of any substance. If no (pre-)registration is submitted, a legal entity will be in breach of the regulation if it manufacturers or imports a substance at ≥1 tonne per year from the end of 2008.
  
• Information down and up the supply chain will increase as REACH requires the communication of identified uses to downstream users and requests for any unidentified uses to be included in the registration dossier
• For existing substances, a process of pre-registration allows full registration to be completed over a phase-in period of up to 10 years, depending on the individual registrant’s tonnage of that substance.
• Authorisation and, as a final safety net, restriction of substances of high concern for specific uses, where the risks can be minimised and effectively controlled
• REACH is not a one-off process, but requires continuous review and update of individual registrations as factors such as tonnage, identified uses or risk profiles change.