On the 15th of March 2023, ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) published their Regulatory Strategy on Flame Retardants (FRs) as part of the European Restrictions Roadmap under the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.
ECHA identifies that several phosphorus, inorganic and nitrogen (PIN) flame retardants are low hazard and that currently no regulatory actions are needed, particularly for mineral, nitrogen, inorganic phosphate and several types of organophosphorus FRs.
The Strategy suggests the need for further scrutiny and regulatory action on certain brominated flame retardants for 2023 and 2024.
pinfa members offer to support the planned revision of the Strategy in 2025, especially on the grouping approach for flame retardants and by providing further data and scientific evidence.
We encourage the ECHA’s recommendation to finalise further data collection before taking any regulatory action on PIN FRs. In addition, the regulatory processes under REACH like substance evaluation are still pending. This should include a proper risk assessment of the corresponding uses instead of only hazard based assessments.
pinfa will provide detailed technical comments to ECHA on the FR Strategy by the 26th of April 2023.