Il REACH regulation relating to the ban on pellets by lead on wetlands was formally published last Wednesday and will officially go into effect in 20 days. The Vice President of the hunting and biodiversity intergroup communicates this with a dedicated note Marco Dreosto, in which he adds "the application of the regulation for member countries will begin in 24 months, therefore in February 2023. The complete proposal for a ban on lead published by theEuropean Chemical Agency (ECHA) on the placing on the market and use of lead in ammunition and fishing gear.
The proposed early restriction covers all uses of lead in bullets with the explicit exception for military, defense, police, security, customs and indoor shooting ranges. ECHA's proposal regarding lead sold and used in hunting, in sports shooting and other types of outdoor shooting is as follows: a ban on the sale and use of lead shot (with a transitional period of five years) for hunting, with the option for Member States to derogate for sport shooting only in cases where emissions into the environment are minimized, or if they are equipped with devices for the collection and recovery of bullets, as well as a ban on the use of lead in small caliber bullets (five years), while for the large caliber the transition period is shortened to only 18 months.
As announced, ECHA will open a public consultation on the subject in March / April 2021. The Scientific Opinion (RAC) on Hazard Aspects and Scope is expected to be adopted in the fourth quarter of 2021 and a socio-economic analysis report should be published in parallel, in the last months of the year. A further public consultation on the RAC opinion will be opened in the 1st quarter of 2022. For Dreosto a further unacceptable forcing, towards which the intergroup together with FACE, has already started to work, in order to invalidate the results of this new, deplorable proposal, dropped from above by the European Agency with the tacit approval of the EC.