REACH-IT Problems

The REACH-IT system is starting to buckle under the volume of users, and on Wednesday, 27th August, it slowed down and then crashed completely.

Saturday mornings are still a good time to pre-register (thanks to Darrell Nash, Albion Dyestuffs Ltd).

Although Late Pre-Registration is available, this is meant to be for genuine cases (such as suppliers withdrawing products or going out of business, or manufacturers making existing products for the first time).

HSE have stated (at a YCF REACH Network meeting) that the REACH-IT system running slow, or crashing, will not be considered a valid reason for Late Pre-Registration - in other words, if you miss the pre-registration deadline, you'll need to go for full registration immediately, or withdraw the substance from the EU market.

It was also HSE's opinion that pre-registration would not be extended beyond 30th November 2008, even if there are serious technical problems with the IT system.


Start pre-registration ASAP

We recommend that everybody start pre-registration as soon as possible, if you have not already done so. It would be sensible to have everything pre-registered by the end of October, because November is likely to be extremely busy for REACH-IT, with an associated higher risk of system failure.


HSE Pre-registration Presentation now available

In the last newsletter, the HSE's presentation on signing up as a company in REACH-IT wasn't available - it is now, and you can download it by clicking here. It is recommended for anyone who hasn't started pre-registration yet.


Bulk pre-registration now open, and FREE tool for MS Excel Bulk Pre-registration

Bulk pre-registration opened for business on 22nd July 2008. Several companies have produced commercial bulk pre-registration software tools.

However, you can download a FREE spreadsheet from CEFIC (pan-European chemical industry trade association) and CONCAWE (oil companies HSE organisation for Europe) which contains macros to let you transform it into an .xml fils for Bulk Pre-Registration. Click here for more information. There is also a web tutorial and short user guide accessible from this page.

The spreadsheet quite large at 13.7MB, so may take a few minutes to download, depending on your broadband connection (at 1Mb speed it takes about 10 minutes). Don't forget that you need to sign up as a company first, before you can pre-register any substances.

JM has had a quick look at the CEFIC spreadsheet, and it seems quite user-friendly. If you have data already in excel, it looks like you should be able to manipulate your data into the same format, and copy it into the spreadsheet called "preregistrations" really easily.

The spreadsheet also has a worksheet with what appears to be the entire EC Inventory on it, including both CAS and EINECs numbers, as well as EC name, so this may be a useful way of finding out EINECs numbers.

News article Sept/2008/4