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Product Safety
Recently, there is growing concern about “Product Safety”. For example, what chemical substances are included in the product? Do they harm the environment? Here, from the viewpoint of the “Product Assessment System” and “Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) System”, we will show you our approach to product safety.
Product Assessment System
Basic system
To offer customers safe and eco-friendly products, we established a product assessment system within the environmental management system (ISO 14001-certified) that has been in operation as our self-regulations since February 1998. This system controls chemical substances that could potentially put a burden on the environment and are hazardous to human health and safety, through the combined three assessment phases of procurement, products and coloring.
Specifically, we have prepared a “List of Environmentally Impacting Substances (1,062 substances as of March 2008)”, and are now controlling the content of these substances in our products by limiting the use of them at the product development stage. The “List of Environmentally Impacting Substances” includes substances prohibited or avoided to be contained; substances whose content must be controlled; substances whose content is concerned; and substances which may be contained. It lays down our voluntary allowable contents in light of the regulatory limits stipulated by the laws and regulations of each country or those proposed by environmental organizations.
Procurement assessment (green procurement)
We request our raw materials suppliers to cooperate in our global environmental load reduction activities. We also make it a rule to purchase raw materials with higher priority from those addressing the environmental issues. We also request them to submit data on the contents of chemical substances included in the “List of Environmentally Impacting Substances” that are contained in the purchased raw materials, and use this data to conduct product assessments.
Product assessment
To keep the contents of chemical substances included in the “List of Environmentally Impacting Substances” that are contained in our products within our own limits, this system calculates the content of controlled chemicals at the product development stage and redevelops the product accordingly, especially if prohibited substances are included. This ensures that, during product design and development, the content of controlled chemicals is kept within our own limits.
Coloring assessment
We provide subcontractors of our colored products with the “List of Environmentally Impacting Substances” in order for them to ensure that they identify and control these substances in their colorants.
Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) System
What is MSDS?
MSDS is an abbreviation for Material Safety Data Sheet. It is a reference document which includes information on the hazards and harmfulness of our products, precautions in handling the substances, their impact on the environment and so on, in order for our customers to handle the chemical products safely and appropriately.
MSDS Provision System
We prepare MSDS for all products and provide them for our customers. For greater customer convenience, the MSDS was made available for downloading from our homepage in September 2001 and customers can obtain necessary information promptly. In addition, the English version of the MSDS is available online for overseas customers. This enables us to provide information swiftly to our customers, and has been very well received.
MSDS for New Products
In addition to MSDS for existing products, we have developed a system, which enables us to provide the MSDS for new products as soon as they are released. The Research and Development and Raw Material Procurement Centers cooperatively conduct the collection of basic data for the MSDS, through procurement assessment and product assessment from the product development stage. The collected MSDS data is added to the database for release on the homepage.
Responding to the European Chemical Substances Regulations
RoHS Directive
This directive restricts the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.
We do not use any of the raw materials that fall under the 6 substance groups restricted by the directive in our products.
REACH Regulation
This is a new European regulation on chemicals entered into force in 2007, with pre-registration commencing in 2008.
In 2007, we conducted an investigation into all the grades exported to the EU market. With regard to the grades that need to be dealt with, we plan to take appropriate action including the confirmation of registration of each polymer, additives, etc., so that we can duly continue to export these products to the market.
