Biocidal Products Regulation Checks

From the 1st January 2020 the OSPAR HMCS pre-screening scheme will incorporate a check on biocidal actives in biocidal products. The amendments to the HMCS pre-screening scheme will ensure that biocidal products are only OCNS registered when:

• The biocidal active substance is on the Article 95 list of active substances published by ECHA.
• The supplier of that biocidal active substance is included on the list against the relevant substance.
• The product type relating to the active substance BPR registration is suitable for use in offshore chemicals.

Although the HMCS amendment does not come into force until 1 January Cefas will undertake some preliminary checks on currently registered biocidal products prior to this date.

Where we are not able to establish that a product is in compliance with the HMCS amendments using the information that we currently hold, relevant suppliers will be contacted prior to 1 January 2020 with a request for further information regarding their compliance.

For products that are not in compliance or where, following our requests for further information, we are still not able to establish if a product is in compliance the suppliers of the relevant products will be informed before 1 February 2020. Updated templates for these products will then be reissued before 1 March 2020 with shortened (3 month) expiry dates. No further action will be taken and the products will expire unless the chemical suppliers can demonstrate that their products are in compliance.

Further details can be found in the updated version of the OSPAR Pre-screening scheme which is available on the OSPAR website.