
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published a “Strategy to promote safer chemicals through substitution”. Actions will include organising dialogue along the supply chain, mapping and informing of possibilities for funding and technical support, using ECHAs data on chemicals (registration, classification and risk assessment data) support substitution and developing a multi-stakeholder network (NeRSAP Network of REACH SEA and Analysis of Alternatives Practitioners). ECHA has already started sending letters to registrants of substances identified as being structurally similar to problematic substances, using the QSAR toolbox, and will manually screen these for possible regulatory action in order to try to avoid “regrettable substitution”. Other options considered by ECHA include enabling searching of registration data for uses, monitoring submitted PPORD data (Product and Process Orientated Research and Development), developing a public database of alternatives
ECHA substitution strategy (January 2018) https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/13630/250118_substitution_strategy_en.pdf/bce91d57-9dfc-2a46-4afd-5998dbb88500