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On the 25th of November, Korea’s MoE issued the Existing Chemicals Inventory (KECI) which includes 42,967 substances with KE No., CAS No. and chemical name. The deadline for public consultation is the 15th of Dec 2014. The release of the inventory is particularly timely with the upcoming implementation of K-REACH on the 1st of Jan 2015.
As we know, Korea’s “existing chemical substances inventory” consist of two parts, including
Chemical substances published by the Minister of Environment (MoE) through consultation with the Minister of Employment and Labor (MoEL) These chemicals are substances distributed for commercial use in Korea prior to 2 Feb 1991. (37021 substances)
Chemical substances published by the MoE that have undergone new chemical notification under the previous Toxic Chemicals Control Act (TCCA) after 2 Feb 1991. (5946 substances)
The 5946 substances (part 2 above) are all new chemical substances that have undergone hazard assessment under TCCA and published through Korea’s Official Gazatte as existing chemical substances in the three years since the assessment results were officially delivered to the notifier. Some of these substances use only generic names and KE No.
All new chemical substance registrations will be conducted under K-REACH from the 1st of Jan 2015. Unlike its predecessor the TCCA, K-REACH does not have procedures to include previously assessed new chemical substances into the KECI as existing substances. This means the KECI will not be appended after 2015 except for inclusion of substances already assessed under TCCA (3 years after assessment).
Considering the fact that there has been a significant increase in the number of new chemical registrations under TCCA before K-REACH comes into effect, we can expect a number of new chemical substances to be added into KECI by 2018. Only after that will the KECI be finalized in a real sense.
Korea offers on-line search with the KE No., CAS No., chemical name, which displays more detailed results such as whether or not the existing substance is regulated as a toxic chemical, observational chemical, restricted or banned chemical, accident precaution chemical, and any associated the prohibition/limitation information.
