NEW REACH SDS REQUIREMENTS
If you manufacture or supply chemical mixtures which contain hazardous substances, for professional or industrial use, then you must provide a GHS/CLP compliant Safety Data Sheet (SDS) with your products.
The European Commission has amended Annex II of REACH, concerning the compilation of Safety Data Sheets. Safety Data Sheets don’t change very often – this is an important update.
The regulation aligns REACH Annex II with the 6th and 7th revisions of GHS, and brings in a number of modifications to SDSs. The latest amendment to Annex II was published in the Official Journal on 26th June 2020 (Regulation (EU) 2020/878).
DEADLINE FOR 2022
The regulation applied from 1st January 2021, which means that all new SDSs must take into account the new requirements.
All existing SDSs, authored before January 2021, are still valid until the grace period ends on 31st December 2022 (except for bulk mixtures requiring an UFI). After this date, all Safety Data Sheets will need to be updated to the new requirements.
WHAT YOU MUST DO TO REMAIN COMPLIANT
Any SDS compiled according to the old Annex II requirements will have to be rewritten to comply with the updated requirements. The grace period until 31 December 2022 has been given to update such SDSs – all existing SDSs will be valid until the grace period ends. Organisations should start the process of updating their SDSs now.
The SDS format has been harmonised so that information can be easily found and shared with the relevant people. The SDS must follow the 16 chapter format which includes the hazard information, and labelling information shown in section two. Each section requires very specific details and the contents of the Safety Data Sheet must match the information on the corresponding label of the substance or mixture.
See the required SDS changes section by section.
Organisations should start the process of updating their SDSs now and be prepared in good time before the end of December 2022.
Review the impact that the changes have on your substances and mixtures and gather any information to add to the relevant sections of your safety Data Sheets.
ECHA Guidance on the Compilation of Safety Data Sheets
I ALREADY HAVE A SOFTWARE/LABEL SUPPLIER, WHY SHOULD I TALK TO HIBISCUS?
Hibiscus Plc has been producing chemical labels for over 40 years, and our in-house team of developers have created a range of software to solve our customers’ dilemmas since 1986. Our custom-made solutions are exclusive to Hibiscus Plc and tailored specifically for hazardous goods labelling and documentation.
Our unbeatable industry knowledge and experience ensures that our products are fully compliant with the latest regulations, easy to use, and able to produce exactly the results you need. Dangerous goods regulations can be a minefield and we pride ourselves on our expertise in hazard communication compliance and the superb performance of our products.
SAFETY DATA SHEET COMPLIANCE WITH PROMETHEUS
Created as a joint development with Lexeus Ltd, Prometheus is our Safety Data Sheet creation and management software – a simple, intuitive and flexible solution for Safety Data Sheet compliance.
Prometheus can:
- Help your company fulfil the “materials safety data sheet” requirement
- Provide you with convenient flexibility for authoring and distributing your own SDSs
- Give you many options to produce data sheets in a variety of formats to satisfy all users
- Give you the choice to customise your SDSs by language, to suit destination, and using different graphics/images
- Save you time and effort
- Let you set different access levels to your SDSs for different users
Prometheus can be used independently as your ideal SDS creation, storage and distribution platform or combined with our companion products to form an integrated solution for all your hazardous chemical documentation and labelling requirements.