Product safety and chemical management
Product safety has top priority for us. To fully rule out possible negative impacts of our products on the environmental or the health and safety of people who come into contact with the products in the production process or as customers, these aspects are taken into consideration in the entire product life cycle, from product development, certification, raw material sourcing, production, storage, and transport, to the usage and disposal phase.
Our environmental policy stipulates that our customers shall be given a suitable briefing on the properties of our products and essential safety measures, and advised on questions regarding products disposal. Safety data sheets are available for copper and a number of other products. We can issue a plant certificate for every delivery that indicates its material properties. We minimize risks from the transport of our products by consistently observing the load securing regulations and the maximum permitted loads. Corporate Environmental Protection is responsible for ensuring chemical safety, Group-wide, with respect to production. The European chemical regulation REACH (reference following section “REACH”) establishes an important framework for chemicals management.
REACH
The European REACH directive, which has been in effect since 2007, created a new framework for chemicals management. REACH stands for “Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals”. Thus, stands for the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals.
The objective of the directive is to collect information on all of the materials on the market in the EU, to evaluate them, and to protect humans and the environment with appropriate measures. This is initially carried out by the producers and importers of the materials, who compile data, perform analyses if necessary, evaluate the results, and make them accessible to the authorities in the form of registration dossiers. Together with other companies, Aurubis became involved in a number of consortia at the European level early on. This ensured that the registration dossiers were scientifically based and developed cost-efficiently at the same time – an approach that proved to be successful.
At Aurubis, the group-wide fulfillment of the REACH requirements is coordinated centrally in Hamburg. Furthermore, we have contacts at the individual sites who are responsible for local implementation. This is very important in an expanding company in order to ensure that all of the requirements are complied with. Most of the materials Aurubis produces and imports were registered successfully and on time in 2010 and 2013. We now regularly review the relevant material streams at the sites and prepare additional registrations that have become necessary. The existing registration dossiers are regularly updated to adjust them to current requirements and proven approaches and to take new results into consideration.
At Aurubis, the group-wide fulfillment of the REACH requirements is coordinated centrally in Hamburg. Furthermore, we have contacts at the individual sites who are responsible for local implementation. This is very important in an expanding company in order to ensure that all of the requirements are complied with. The materials produced and imported by Aurubis are properly registered, and the individual substance flows at the sites are regularly reviewed in order to prepare any additional registrations that may become necessary. The existing registration dossiers are regularly updated to adjust them to current requirements and proven approaches and to take new results into consideration.
Another central responsibility is consultation on the safety data sheets in the Aurubis Group. Due to new scientific insights, there are continuous changes to the classification of materials, which is regulated by the CLP Regulation system for the classification and labeling of substances. Accordingly, safety data sheets and safety information sheets are also constantly updated and supplemented with extensive exposure scenarios as required.