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Tyler Cordaro

Under the rules, producers will have to register the properties of chemicals with an agency to be set up in Helsinki, Finland, that will have powers to ban those presenting significant health threats. Companies will be required to gradually replace the most high-risk chemicals -- so-called persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances -- where safer alternatives exist. If no alternative exists, producers will have to submit a plan to develop one.

Because of fears over potential job losses, the parliament scaled back chemicals-testing requirements in the first reading of the law -- known as REACH, for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals -- last year. Some 13,000 substances, deemed of high concern, face automatic testing, but almost all tests were waived for little-used chemicals of which only 1 to 10 metric tons are produced or imported into the EU annually.