Product safety is an essential requirement for health and consumer protection. As far as there are legal regulations, they concern substances in applications.

Food contact

The most known law in Germany on product safety regards consumer goods. This comprises all applications with direct food contact and certain applications with direct skin contact.

In the EU there is no specific legal regulation for consumer goods with direct skin contact. Framework regulation 1935/2004/EC applies to all materials in applications in direct food contact in the EU. This regulation is binding for all EU member states.

Plastics directive 2002/72/EC in addition applies to plastics; it has to be transposed into national law by each member state. In Germany it is part of the consumer goods regulation.

Pharmaceutical packaging

The 'Pharmacopeia' with official character applies to drugs in Europe. The pharmaceutical industry and its suppliers in addition use the legal regulations for food contact, in particular the substance regulations of the positive list.

Construction products

The EU Construction Products Directive and its implementation by national laws regulate the product safety by the 'Essential Requirement 3'. The definition of this requirement is currently in a standardisation and legislative process.

Automobile applications

The End-of-Life-Vehicle Directive and its implementation by national laws regulate the use of heavy metals.

Electrical and electronics

The RoHS Directive regulates the use of dangerous substances for electrical and electronic equipment. Among those are in particular heavy metals and certain flame retardants.

Toys

The Toys Directive regulates the use of dangerous substances in the use for toys for children of certain age groups.

Cosmetics

The Cosmetics Directive and its national laws regulate the use of substances in the applications.

REACh

All previously not mentioned and otherwise not specifically regulated applications and substances are regulated by the new chemicals law REACh, also for product safety.

Our activities in product safety

The table on the right shows these areas in detail and in groups. The numbers indicated present the numbers of articles regarding the listed topics generated or processed by us. All reports are stored in our database and are available to our partners via our Management Information System MIS.