PFAS: REACH Restriction Process - State of Play

 

Due to their persistence and their wide dispersive and growing use, PFAS pose a risk to humans and the environment. Previous regulations to reduce this risk focused on individual substances in this class. This led to the rapid development and use of substitutes from the same class of substances, which have very similar properties. The problem of continuous emissions of persistent substances and hence of the resulting risk therefore remains unresolved. For this reason, restriction dossiers have now been drawn up that consider the substance class as a group and aim to minimise emissions of PFAS into the environment and the associated risk. The implementation of the restriction on PFAS in fire-fighting foams is the first step in this direction. The dossier on the restriction of all other uses of PFAS, submitted in 2023, is currently being discussed by the ECHA committees. The dossier considers the most appropriate and effective measure for minimising PFAS emissions into the environment to be a restriction on the manufacture, use and placing on the market of these substances as such, as well as in substances, mixtures and articles, after a transition period of 18 months. However, products (mixtures or articles) containing PFAS that are already on the market should be able to continue to be used. In addition, temporary (6.5 or 13.5 years) use-specific exemptions as well as time-unlimited derogations for specific cases are proposed. Before the committees finalise their opinions, ECHA will conduct a 60-day public consultation on the draft SEAC opinion. The final opinions, the revised background document and all comments from the consultations will be forwarded to the European Commission for further processing. The European Commission will then decide, together with the EU Member States, whether to include a corresponding restriction in the REACH Regulation.

 

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