Poison Centres: Industrial-use-only mixtures must comply from 1 January 2024

In the EU, starting from 1 January 2024, all newly submitted Poison Centre Notifications (PCNs) must comply with the harmonized information requirements detailed in Annex VIII to the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation. Importers and downstream users of industrial use only mixtures must therefore be aware of the approaching deadline for poison centre compliance.

Industrial-use-only mixtures are exclusively used within industrial premises and remain inaccessible to both consumers and professionals, whether in their end-product form or through any diluted versions achieved via reformulation, such as mixtures within mixtures (MiM). An example of an industrial-use-only mixture (as a final product) could be an automotive paint used only at industrial site and accessible only by industrial end users.

There will be a one-year transitional period. Notifications for industrial-use-only mixtures that are on the market and notified before 1 January 2024 will remain valid until 1 January 2025 or until changes are made to the product (e.g. changes to the mixture composition, toxicological properties, or product identifiers). 

According to Annex VIII to the CLP Regulation, the harmonised information requirements include:

• the full chemical composition

• the toxicological information

• information about the product

• the unique formula identifier (UFI)

However, when it comes to industrial use mixtures, there is the option of making a "limited submission" where compositional information from the Safety Data Sheet can be used. If this option is used, the notification must include a contact person who can provide around the clock rapid access to the complete compositional details in case of an incident.

PCNs can be prepared and submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) using the International Uniform Chemical Information Database (IUCLID). More information can be found at ECHA’s Poison Centre Website: https://poisoncentres.echa.europa.eu/.