Lisette van Vliet, Health & Environment Alliance

The chemicals law REACH has established a new consumer Right to Know in Europe. This principle obliges companies to, upon request for consumers, within 45 days provide sufficient information regarding if their products contain substances on the REACH Candidate List in a concentration above 0.1%.

This Right to Know has a great potential to change the interaction between consumers, manufacturers, retailers, governments and the decision-makers in the new regulatory apparatus, and help consumers make healthier choices.

First of all, it can help consumers make informed choices to avoid toxic chemicals in products, and to express their need for safer products to manufacturers and retailers.

Secondly, when a consumer requests information, it can educate these manufacturers and retailers about ‘market demand’, and their own product lines. It gives the company the occasion to find out in order to respond to the consumer’s request, and the company is also being given a very clear signal that consumers are concerned about toxic chemicals and would like to have safer alternatives.

Finally, it can also help push governments to ensure the right to know: at the very least, governments will be responsible for enforcing compliance with the consumers’ right to know requests. Too many reports by consumers of companies’ non-compliance, and it won’t be long before unfavorable media attention emerges, both for the company, and for the enforcer.

It is governments who have the task of nominating ‘Candidate List’ chemicals, on which the REACH Right to Know draws. In the contradiction between media reports of certain products steeped in toxic chemicals, with the resulting exposure of people, of wildlife and environment, and the glaring absence of these spotlighted toxics from the REACH Candidate List, the legitimacy of governments and the European Union is at stake.

Governments have it in their power to ensure that consumers, when submitting right to know requests, are informed about the full complement of already known toxic chemicals, by undertaking the necessary steps to have them put on the Candidate List.

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), and its many partners, believe in the power of right to know to help move us to a toxic-free future. We encourage consumers to use the REACH right to know with a leaflet explaining how the right to know works, also including a model letter consumers can immediately use, and a list of all 27 government ministries to contact if a company does not comply with a request to know. The leaflet is in 6 languages, and available at: www.chemicalshealthmonitor.org /spip.php?rubrique106.

The SIN List is a key part of the Right to Know picture, because it shows the public, and the market suppliers that more is possible. We therefore tell consumers to ask companies to use the SIN List to identify and replace harmful chemicals. Although the companies are not legally obliged to respond on whether any SIN List chemicals are present in products, we know that from their responses, consumers will be able to see which companies are making significant efforts to move to greener chemistry, and to design and produce products that do not endanger the health of their customers or the environment.

Lisette van Vliet, Ph.D, Toxics Policy Advisor, Health & Environment Alliance