New Changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO)

According to Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO) the regulation, all hazardous chemicals, including substance with explosibility, flammability, oxidability, corrosivity, health-toxicology and eco-toxicology, shall obtain the HSNO approval No. prior to being manufactured or imported in New Zealand. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) ensures that manufacturers and importers of Hazardous Substances have the appropriate HSNO approval, correct label, packaging and SDS for their substance, and comply with allowable limits (and bans) of certain Hazardous Substances within products.

Recently, EPA the of New Zealand has changed the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO) fees and import certificate requirements for manufacturers and importers. After seeking feedback at stakeholder events and reviewing written submissions, the new HSNO fees were created. The new fees will take effect October 1, 2018. This is the first update to the proposed fees since 2003 and 2005. Applicants now pay 16-57% of processing costs, and the government pays the remainder.

For import certificate requirement for explosives the Environmental Protection Authority utilized the feedback they received and agreed to narrow the requirements. Import certificates will be required for:

• Class 1 explosives which are subject to the controlled licence requirements under regulation 9.5 of the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulations 2017.
• Fireworks, other than novelty and noise-maker fireworks.

Import certificates will no longer be required for marine safety flares or novelty and noise-maker fireworks.

Be HSNO compliant with ERA’s SDS Authoring and hazardous substance labelling. ERA provides a free SDS Viewer mobile app to all our SDS software users, so they can review SDSs on the go.  Update your SDSs with ERA’s SDS authoring capabilities to make them compliant with Australia, Canada, EU, or U.S. standards. 

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