Market surveillance of textiles and footwear tightened by 2021

On July 1, 2020, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced that it will start checking products made of specific material types such as rubber, plastics and textiles for compliance with restrictions on selected hazardous substances under the REACH and POP Regulation. Do your products meet the requirements?

Hazardous products

Clothing, footwear and accessories are among the product categories that are often reported through Safety Gate, the European alert system for hazardous non-food products. Reasons for the alerts often relate to exceeding limits for substances that are harmful to health and therefore subject to restrictions.

Heightened market surveillance

According to ECHA's announcement, enforcement will be prepared in 2021, at which time it will also be decided which specific substances, which may include phthalates and PFOS, will be inspected. Inspections will be conducted in 2022 and the report is expected to be published in late 2023.

Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 on market surveillance and product conformity, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on June 25, 2019, will enter into force on July 16, 2021. This regulation strengthens and modernizes market surveillance and gives member state authorities additional powers to protect consumers from unsafe and non-compliant products.

The Regulation's market surveillance provisions apply not only to of clothing, footwear and accessories, but to all product categories covered by EU harmonization legislation as listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. Products offered online or through other means of distance selling to consumers in the Union also fall within the scope of the regulation.

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