Coal Combustion Products and REACH
On 1st June 2007, the REACH-Regulation (Registration, Authorisation, Evaluation and Restriction of Chemicals) entered into force. The overriding goal of the regulation is to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks of chemicals while enhancing the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. By this, all chemicals manufactured in or imported into the EU have to be registered at the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). The registration requires information on the properties and the potential risks of the substances.
Coal Combustion Products (CCPs) are being produced in coal-fired power stations which burn either hard or brown coal. CCPs are produced during the coal combustion process either from the mineral parts of the coal or as a result of desulphurisation of flue gases from the power stations. The annual production in EU 27 is estimated to amount to about 100 million tonnes. CCPs are mainly utilised in the building material industry, in civil engineering, in road construction, for construction work in underground coal mining as well as for recultivation and restoration purposes in open cast mining. By this, they are placed on the market and for many applications they are subject to REACH.
Each producer or importer of coal combustion products (CCPs) placed on the market as construction materials have to pre-register and to register their substances. The pre-registration requires information on the substance identity, the tonnages and the name and address of the producer. The registration requires i.a. comprehensive information about toxicology and ecotoxicology of the substances.
In Europe, non registered substances can not be placed on the market after 1st June 2008 any more! For CCPs, since they are already registered in the European Inventory of the Existing Commercial Chemical Substances (EINECS) the deadline for registration is extended to 30 November 2010. This is only true if the producer pre-register in the period of June 1 to November 30, 2008!
A project group is dealing with the details for the pre-registration of CCPs. Members of the project group are i.a. representatives of the associations BDEW, VGB, BVK, BV Gips, EuroGypsum and ECOBA. The work of the project group is aiming at the formation of European consortia for the common registration of calcium sulphate including natural and FGD gypsum as well as for coal ashes (fly ash , bottom ash, boiler slag).
European producers and importers of coal combustion products are invited to join these consortia and to share the data about toxicology and ecotoxicology of the substances. For this it is recommended that interested parties use the same substance identification to find themselves in the same Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF).
The press release (english and german language) can be downloaded here
 REACH/PR_05_08d_REACH.pdf | press release - German version |
| REACH/PR_05_08e_REACH-1.pdf | press release - English version |