Key messages

• Regulation on the content and amounts of chemicals in consumer products and materials is a key part of ensuring chemical safety.
• Enforcement of such regulations requires appropriate analytical tools to monitor compliance in products on the market, as well as support producers and importers in ensuring their products are safe.
• This project will contribute to the development of new analytical tools aligned with the data needs of current and upcoming chemical safety regulations and support the transfer of knowledge from analytical development to implementation.

Overview

Effective enforcement of EU chemicals safety legislation is vital to the success of the European Green Deal ↗ and the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability ↗. Ensuring compliance not only protects public health and the environment but also promotes fair competition among producers and importers.

This project explores how innovative chemical identification methods innovative chemical identification methods can be better used to support enforcement actions. While recent advances in analytical technologies and chemical information systems offer powerful tools for identifying a wide range of substances, including those of emerging concern, these capabilities remain underutilised in regulatory contexts. The project aims to bridge this gap by evaluating the practical applicability of these novel approaches.

A core objective is the development and testing of rapid screening techniques capable of identifying restricted or priority substances across various sample types. These methods will help identify non-compliant products and materials more systematically and efficiently, strengthening the enforcement of existing EU legislation such as REACH ↗, CLP ↗, RoHS ↗, the POPs Regulation ↗, and regulations on toys and food contact materials.

The outcomes of this work will directly support national authorities by improving access to reliable, broad-coverage analytical tools. In doing so, the project contributes to safer consumer products, a cleaner environment, and a more level playing field within the internal market.

Achievements & Results

A systematic workflow for compliance testing of a proposed broad PFAS restriction was developed through a series of workshops involving analytical scientists, regulators and inspectors. Empirical testing of the most crucial steps of the workflow is currently being carried out for an array of different articles including treated textiles, packaging electronic components as well as chemical products.