New European REACH Project

A consortium of eight partners has embarked upon a 2-year project focussing on improving understanding of the REACH legislation for the benefit of polymer companies in Europe.  “Polymer REACH” is a 0.5 million Euro project, which will run through 2010 and 2011 and which will be supported by funding from the Leonardo “Lifelong Learning Programme”.

The objective of “Polymer REACH” is to develop new content, an e-learning platform and supporting materials specifically for the European Polymer Industry, to help companies, particularly SMEs, to understand and increase their knowledge base on REACH.  By facilitating the implementation of REACH, the project will help to bring about the planned-for environmental gains, whilst at the same time lessening the economic burden on companies.

“Polymer REACH” will address two priority areas; (a) developing vocational skills within companies, considering their labour market needs and (b) supporting the development of innovative ICT-based content as an ongoing learning tool.  No such ICT-based tool currently exists and the project will result in practical mechanisms, available to polymer companies in Europe, to help their workers understand the complexities of the REACH legislation and to act upon it accordingly.

The consortium is led by UK-based i-Smithers, who are acting as main project co-ordinators, with other partners based in the UK, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Lithuania and Estonia.  A 2-day project launch meeting took place recently at the Shawbury headquarters of i-Smithers (see illustration) and it is now “all systems go” to achieve the goals of the project by the end of 2011.