REACH-related substitution within the Danish printing industry

The accomplishment of the EU REACH regulation will most probably promote substitution within sectors handling a lot of different chemicals like the printing industry. With the aim of being at the cutting edge of this development the Danish EPA together with the Danish printing industry and IPU are running a substitution project. A major part of the work has been mapping the presence of chemicals which are potential candidates for substitution (e.g. PBT, CMR, vPvB, EDS) within the Danish printing industry. The mapping comprises a combination of a literature study and an investigation of the actual (2007) presence of candidate substances at 15 Danish printing houses including the examination of more than 1000 MSDS’s (i.e. products). About 90 of the mapped substances are candidates for substitution according to Danish legislation (List of Undesirable Substances) and more that 20 of these substances fulfil one or more of the criteria (e.g. CMR, EDS) for the REACH Annex XIV candidate list (authorisation). The paper presents the results of the mapping of chemical candidates and the first results of the actual substitutions. Keywords: REACH, chemicals, substitution, printing industry.