Right to information

The information on chemical content that is required by law to be passed down the supply chain differs between articles and chemical products.

Articles

According to Article 33 of REACH, information on the content of substances of very high concern (SVHC) on the candidate list must be provided further down the supply chain (if the substance is present in a concentration above 0.1% by weight). 

The information must be provided to professional customers at the latest on delivery and to consumers on request (free of charge and within 45 days). The information to be provided must include at least the substance concerned.

Remember that if you in turn sell a product further in the supply chain, you are responsible for compliance, so you need to ensure that you receive information on the possible content of substances on the candidate list. One way of doing this is to sign a chemical agreement with your suppliers. There are also other requirements related to the content of Candidate List substances in articles: reporting to the SCIP database and notification to ECHA under REACH Article 7(2).

If you are importing an article from a non-EU/EEA country, you must always ask about the possible content of Candidate List substances (and other chemicals legislation to which the article is subject).

For biocide-treated products, the law requires you to ask for information about the treatment applied to the product, and for products marketed with a claim such as "odourless" or "antibacterial", there is a requirement to label with information about the biocide treatment.

Chemical products

If you use chemical products in your business that you have purchased from a supplier in the EU/EEA, you are entitled to the following information about the chemical content (the information must be in Swedish): 

Chemical products must be labelled, classified and packaged in accordance with the CLP Regulation to inform users of potential hazards and how to handle the products safely.

Professional users are also entitled to a safety data sheet. Rules on the provision and format of safety data sheets are set out in Article 31 of REACH and Annex II. A safety data sheet must contain information describing the hazardous properties of the products, the risks and the protective measures to be taken (described in 16 mandatory sections). Section 2 must contain information on the classification and labelling of the product and section 3 must contain information on the ingredients (chemical identity, concentration and classification). This does not mean full transparency of chemical content (there are rules on when content should be disclosed in a safety data sheet), but you are still entitled to more information on content than for articles.