SIN List Launch Media Coverage

A number of publications (and other actors) followed and commented on the launch of the SIN List project. Please find below a sample of articles in the press, with short extracts in italics, following ChemSec's launch of the SIN List 1.0, on 17 September 2008.

European Parliament magazine

Precautionary principle, by Anders Wijkman, Member of the European Parliament

What was striking at the launch of the sin list on 17 September was not only the concordance between the NGOs involved, but also the support the project enjoyed among a large number of transnational companies. In order to achieve their aim, these companies expressed the need for guidance.

ENDS Europe Daily

Campaigners launch parallel Reach blacklist

A coalition of environmental campaign groups has published a blacklist of 267 chemicals it says businesses should move towards substituting with safer alternatives. The "Substitute it now!" (Sin) list has been drawn up by umbrella group the International chemical secretariat (ChemSec) and is aimed at "speeding up implementation of Reach" (EED 11/10/07).

Euractiv

First REACH list to be short but regularly updated

Thursday 18 September 2008
All chemicals on the SIN list "are dangerous and deserve to be on the candidate list of REACH," noted a member of the list's advisory committee Daryl W. Ditz, a policy advisor at the Chemicals Program Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in the US. Ditz said the aim of the list is "to help provide guidance to businesses so that they can make wise choices" and start substituting dangerous chemicals before regulation. The list gives downstream chemical users (companies making automobiles, electronics, buildings, consumer products, toys, food, etc.) "an early warning" and thus time to find their own solutions and new suppliers "who give them something safer". Seeing the list, a smart company will start making plans because using these chemicals in ten years "will not be good business," he added.

Scientific American

European Chemical Clampdown Reaches Across Atlantic: Many chemicals manufactured in the U.S. have been pronounced "dangerous" by the European Union

Of the 267 chemicals on the potential expanded REACH list compiled by the International Chemical Secretariat in Sweden, two are regulated in some form under U.S. law - asbestos and hexavalent chromium (chromium VI) - and only one third have even been tested by the EPA. "Asbestos is the poster child for what's wrong with the Toxics Substances Control Act," the 1976 U.S. law governing such chemicals, Denison says. EPA attempted to craft a regulation to ban its use only to have it rejected by courts. "They couldn't even do it for asbestos," which causes lung disease and cancer.

Chemical Watch

Version 1.0 of ChemSec SIN List goes live

CMR, PBT and endocrine disrupting substances among 267 on first list Mark Newton, environmental policy manager in the sustainable business division of computer giant Dell, welcomed the list saying it was just the kind of tool that downstream users needed to give them predictability. Mr Newton said the value of the list lay in the fact that it represented a harmonised priority list with the backing of NGOs. Dell regarded NGOs as "issue experts", not antagonists, he remarked.

EDN - Electronic Design, Strategy, News

REACH update: 'Substitute It Now' Substances of Very High Concern list released

Thursday, September 18, 2008
"ChemSec marshaled scientists from academia and elsewhere across the globe to help compile this list over the last several months. We therefore suggest that you do not take this lightly, even though the European chemical industry is not happy about it. It is a serious list compiled through the efforts of serious scientists," Design Chain Associates advised.

Pesticide and Toxic Chemical News

U.S. companies to be impacted by REACH SVHCs

ChemSec, Denison said, created the SIN List from current EU-developed lists of chemicals categorized as carcinogenic mutagenic or toxic to reproduction, or identified as persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic or very persistent and very bioaccumulative. The SIN List lays out the chemicals that meet the standards for SVHCs under REACH, he said. Deeming the list "some sort of NGO wish list" is putting one's head in the sand. "I'd like to think that both the SIN List and the report do a service," Denison told PTCN, explaining that companies that may be affected by REACH regulation "need some advanced warning about these things."

Europolitics

nr.3597 (Sept 17, 2008)
Des ONG donnent un coup d'accélérateur au processus REACH

Par Anne Eckstein
Des organisations non gouvernementales annoncent la mise en ligne d'une première liste de substances « très préoccupantes » disponibles sur le marché. Cette liste, sous le nom de «REACH SIN List 1.0», sera accessible à partir du mercredi 17 septembre 13h (CET) (1).

Spanish New Agency - EFE

UE-AMBIENTE - ONG y consumidores piden a empresas que dejen de usar 260 químicos peligrosos (Marta Borras)
El objetivo de la lista de sustancias, que se puede consultar en la página "www.sinlist.org", es llamar la atención sobre las mismas para que la Agencia Europea de Sustancias Químicas, con sede en Helsinki, obligue a su sustitución, señalaron por otra parte fuentes del Instituto Sindical español de Trabajo, Ambiente y Salud (ISTAS).

CSR Wire: Corporate Social Responsibility

New Risks for Chemical Companies

To estimate financial exposure to regulatory impacts of REACH on "substances of very high concern," Innovest utilized a database developed by the International Chemical Secretariat that identifies nearly 300 chemicals that meet specific criteria under REACH. Innovest's analysis indicates that for 11 of the 73 companies, the potential exposure could be greater than 2% of annual sales, if all substances on the ChemSec "SIN List" are subject to authorization. 9.19.2008.

EDIE - Environmental Data Interactive Exchange

Very short list of chemicals for longest straw
While the fact that all the chemicals on the NGOs' list are toxic is not controversial, the body set up to the administer the regulations, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has so far only put forward 16 candidates for the official list - four of which have yet to receive unanimous approval of the committee tasked with drawing up the list.

Cosmetics Design - Europe

Triclosan included in NGO's chemical risk list
One of the chemicals in the list that can be found in some cosmetics products is triclosan - an anti-microbial ingredient that has been at the centre of a recent media storm regarding its alleged endocrine disrupting effects.
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