On March 24th, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) and Ministry of the Environment (MOE) jointly published “Chemical Substances Exempt from Notification of Manufacturing/Import Amount” (a.k.a. “Substances Exempt from Notification”).
The list of “Substances Exempt from Notification” was first published in 2011 and is updated every year. Compared with the previous list, the 2014 version added 224 chemicals bringing the total number of entries to 2067.
Substances exempt from notification:
Not necessary to go through any risk assessment, after the non-hazardous determination by High Molecular Flow Scheme, etc.;
Chemical substances that essentially exist in nature in large amounts, unless otherwise specified;
Chemical substances that have sufficient restrictions already imposed by others laws from the viewpoint of preventing environmental pollution (e.g. gasoline).
