BEFORE BUYING OR USING CHEMICALS, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION CAREFULLY The CLP Regulation is the new EC Regulation No 1272/2008 on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures. The legislation has been introduced throughout the EU as a new system to classify and label chemicals based on the United Nations Globally Harmonising System or GHS. Why is it changing? The new system is to allow uniformity within the United Nations so that all countries worldwide have the same classification for transporting and supplying chemicals. The GHS provides a single system to identify the hazards that will be the same in every country. When is it changing? The CLP Regulation came into force on 20th January 2009, however a transitional period was put into place so that industry and users could adapt. Newly purchased substances must be classified, labelled and packaged according to CLP on 1st December 2010, however, those chemicals already on the shelves can continue to be supplied under old legislation until 1st December 2012. The corresponding dates for mixtures are 1st June 2015 and 1st June 2017 respectively. What are the changes? Users will start to see new pictograms, hazard and precautionary statements, and signal words on chemical labels as suppliers switch to the GHS system. Many of the new GHS pictograms are similar to the existing EU system, but they have been re-designed with new shape and colour. They are not an exact translation of the old symbols and instead of a specific hazard word e.g. toxic, flammable; they are numbered and assigned to a range of categories of substances, an example of this is shown on the following page in the example table. What are the Signal words? The CLP Regulation has introduced two new signal words: ‘Danger’ and ‘Warning’.