Support 4 REACH
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have safer chemicals and a healthier future for wildlife and people. The draft REACH regulation offers a chance to identify and phase out the worst chemicals. New markets for safer products, and increased trust, should make it good news for the chemical industry too.
Wildlife and people are exposed to thousands of chemicals that lack basic safety information. Eighty-six per cent of the 2500 chemicals used in large quantities do not have enough safety information publicly available to do a basic safety assessment. Many are known to be potentially dangerous. Some can interfere with the hormone systems of animals and humans. Others do not break down in nature, but accumulate in our bodies. Chemicals are increasingly suspected of being linked to cancers, allergies and reproductive problems. REACH proposes that industry provides basic, long-overdue safety information on the chemicals it sells. In some cases this requires testing on animals.
Support 4 REACH
Despite criticism from some industry, REACH enjoys broad support from companies, trade unions, scientists, and other organisations. Many want REACH to be strengthened.
"There are in excess of 30,000 chemicals in products that we use and dispose of which have never been tested."
Prince Charles
"We should follow the example of the European Union and start to test the chemical substances that we use everyday, instead of waiting for skin cancer or birth defects to appear before taking the necessary actions."
Senator Hillary Clinton
Companies
Companies supporting REACH include: Tetra Pak (the packaging giants), NCC (the construction company), Marks and Spencer, Boots (British retailers), Euro Coop (representing 3,200 cooperatives with more than 20 million members), Eureau (European Union of National Associations of Water Suppliers and Waste Water Services), The Co-
operative Bank, the Swedish Construction Federation.
“Electrolux is well prepared for REACH”
Asa Portnoff, Electrolux
“We have the resources and the knowledge needed for REACH”
Urban Wass, Volvo
“We consider the elimination of ‘substances of very high concern’ and full information about the contents of the chemical products and materials we use a very important factor of success for the construction industry”
Olle Ehrlen, CEO, NCC Construction
Trade Unions
The European Trade Union Confederation, which represents 60 million workers in 35 European countries, adopted a declaration welcoming REACH. ETUC says that REACH will protect workers from hazardous working conditions and encourage industry to innovate
Trade unions supporting REACH include the German IG Bau, Ver.di and IG Metall; the British GMB, Amicus and T&G; the Spanish Instituto Sindical de Trabajo, Ambiente y Salud (ISTAS), and Confederation Comisiones Obreras; Lo-Sweden; SiD Denmark, Canadian AutoWorkers, and Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions.
The Austrian workers’ organisation, the Federal Chamber of Labour (BAK), welcomed REACH as a “major milestone to extend to users the responsibility for the safe use of chemicals” and as a way to “… assure a high degree of protection for workers, consumers and the environment.”
Scientists
We don’t need any more scientific studies to tell us whether chemicals are safe. We need to act now to protect our citizens, and we need a strengthened REACH".
Professor Epstein, University of Chicago
Leading cancer specialists and toxicologists have launched a worldwide appeal to control chemical pollution and strengthen REACH in a move to stem the growing incidence of cancers. Hundreds of people have signed up to the appeal including former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
"given our understanding of the way chemicals interact with the environment, you could say we are running a gigantic experiment with humans and all other living things as the subject".
Sir Tom Blundell, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
"The fact that flame retardants, pesticides and dioxins can cross from mother to infant in breast milk is also a cause for concern."
Prince Charles
Consumer and civil society groups
Consumer and civil society groups supporting REACH include the European Public Health Alliance, BEUC (the European consumers organisation), Women in European for a Common Future and the UK National Federation of Women’s Institutes. Over 60 American NGOs support REACH including The Breast Cancer Fund, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Sierra Club.
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