What is CLP?

“CLP” is short for a very long EU Regulation, both in its title and its content! The full name is:

Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006.

For those interested the Regulation is 1,355 pages. Like REACH, as an EU Regulation CLP applies directly in all 27 Member States of the EU and also in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein as members of the European Economic Area (EEA).

CLP is the successor to the Dangerous Substances and Dangerous Preparations Directives; like these it requires chemicals to be classified for their hazards and labelled accordingly.

CLP was introduced to put into place a new scheme for classification and labelling. For many years the EU had a robust system based on the Directives dealing with substances and preparations. In the rest of the world there were other schemes – or nothing at all. After many years of international negotiations a “globally harmonised” scheme (GHS) was developed and published by the UN. The EU was the first major jurisdiction to amend its old scheme in favour of the new one. In doing so it retained some important elements of the old system to avoid any loss of protection.

The change to CLP is costly, particularly for those who import or formulate mixtures. For this reason its introduction has been phased in over nearly 10 years. It also includes some special provisions to help business “convert” old labels to new. But despite these features it will be difficult – technically and financially – to deal with CLP, especially if you are a smaller business.

REACHReady is here to help and the first stage is to work though our CLP webpages, starting with the CLP Basics. For our Gold subscribers help is also at hand through more comprehensive on-line resources and of course our Helpdesk.

Join us by becoming a member of REACHReady - sign up now. Call us on +44 (0) 20 7901 1444 for more information. Then you’ll be ready for anything.