Israel Reach Regulation For Various Sectors

Background

When Israel joined the OECD in 2010, the country committed to establishment of a national procedure for registering chemicals. There is only partial regulation of the use of chemicals in Israel and the existing regulation is distributed among various government ministries and does not include a systematic evaluation of industrial chemicals. Israel is the only OECD country that does not have a register of industrial chemicals present in the country, their quantities, and uses and, furthermore, there is no clear picture of the existing regulation regarding each chemical.

Chemical Regulations

In Israel, chemicals are regulated by two laws: The Hazardous Substances Law 5753-1993 and the Industrial Chemicals Registering Law, 5781-2020. The responsible authority is the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP).

Hazardous substance Law 5753-1993

The Hazardous Substances Law regulates the classification of hazardous substances, in accordance to their use, degree of toxicity or risk as well as the manufacture, import, export, packaging, commerce, issue, transfer, and storage maintenance. Companies should apply for a hazardous materials permit before handling hazardous substances in Israel. The permit is valid for a certain amount of time: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, and +3 years.

Industrial Chemicals Registering Law, 5781-2020

On 1 October 2020 the Israelian Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) published the draft law titled ‘Industrial Chemicals Registering law 5781-2020’. The law was notified to the World Trade Organization on 6 January 2021. The law promotes the establishment of a procedure for registering industrial chemicals with the aim to reduce the harmful effects on human health and the environment. The procedure proposed in the law is based on the following components:

• Establishes a Chemical Inventory Registry
• Provides guidelines for performing risk assessment on selected chemicals.
• Provides guidelines for risk management by setting rules restricting the use of chemicals and/or exposure to them.
• Sets the authorities and power given to the registrar and to the Chemical Evaluation Advisory Committee.

Chemical Inventory Registry

Manufacturers and importers of industrial chemicals (above 10 TPA) will be required to report to the online Chemicals Registry at the MEP with following information:

• the chemical properties
• risk characteristics
• uses
• annual quantity produced or imported
• Safety Data Sheet (SDS)

Risk Assessment

Risk assessments will be conducted for chemicals if:

• they have a high risk level
• their scope of use is wide
• their potential for exposure to the public and sensitive populations is high

The MEP of Israel will publish the list of chemicals with a high priority for risk assessment for public comment.

The law is expected to enter into force on 1 March 2023, and the establishment of the Chemical Inventory Registry should be completed and launched by 1 September 2024. However, the law was not approved as scheduled by the end of 2021 so this timeline may be delayed.

GHS

On 9 August 2019 Israel implemented the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classifying and labelling chemicals, Parts 1 and 2 of standard SI 2302, with a 3-year transition period ending on 9 August 2022. The law status of Part 1 is formal and for Part 2 it is partly formal.

Part 1 of SI 2302 (Dangerous substances and mixtures: Classification, labelling, marking, and packaging) is based on the EU CLP regulation implementing the GHS. Part 2 of SI 2302 deals with the transportation of dangerous substances and mixtures (Dangerous substances and mixtures: Transportation-Classification, labelling, marking and packaging). Hazardous chemicals in Israel are regulated by the Hazardous substance Law 5753-1993. After the implementation of GHS, it can be expected that more products are to be classified as hazardous and have GHS-style labelling requirements.