Companies have a responsibility
The companies are responsible for ensuring articles and products sold in Sweden are safe and comply with legislation regarding chemicals. If you have questions about the contents of a particular article or chemical product, it is a good idea to contact the company that manufactured the product.
All companies that sell articles or chemical products are responsible for ensuring that the article or product is safe to use and that the content complies with the law. For chemical products such as detergents, adhesives/glues and paints, companies are also responsible for ensuring that the product is clearly labelled with hazard labelling and information on the safe use of the product.
If the the article or product is manufactured within the EU, the company that manufactured it is responsible for ensuring that the content is safe. If the the article or product is imported from a country outside the EU, the company that imports the article or product is responsible for ensuring that it complies with EU laws.
Shoes, clothing, wallets, belts and mobile phones are examples of items that are classified as articles under chemicals legislation. Other examples of articles are furniture, bicycles, garden hoses, exercise equipment, textiles, electronics, toys, and many more items.
Lighter fluid, methylated spirits (denatured alcohol), windscreen washer fluids, glycol, detergents, paint and glue/adhesives are examples of items that are classified as chemical products according to chemicals legislation.
The Swedish Chemicals Agency conducts random checks
The Swedish Chemicals Agency carries out random checks of articles and chemical products that are on the Swedish market, but we do not review them before they enter the market. The companies are responsible for ensuring that the products that come out on the market comply with chemicals legislation.
Read more about the Swedish Chemicals Agency’s task and what we do
Read more about chemicals on the the European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA) website
External link.