On 9 May 2023 the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved Bill 6120/2019. The Bill will now move on to the Senate for consideration. It is now set to be reviewed by the Environment Committee (CMA) and the Committee on Social Affairs (CAS). The Bill had been shelved since 2019 when President Bolsonaro came into office.

If Bill 6120/2019 is approved in Senate and signed into law it would:

• Establish a National Inventory of Chemical Substances

• Adopt GHS as the mandatory classification system

• Set up an Assessment Committee to assess the risks of the substances and recommend risk management measures

So far, the only Latin American countries that have implemented national chemicals legislation are Chile and Colombia. According to a statement made by Melissa Owen, founder of law practise Ambiente Legal, on LinkedIn there is ‘a distinct possibility that the Bill could be approved as early as this year’ making Brazil the third country in the region to adopt a national chemical legislation.

On 15 February 2023 Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) notified the WTO regarding a new resolution, RDC 774/2023, which entered into force on 1 March 2023. This resolution provides the conditions for the registration and labelling of sanitizing products with antimicrobial action.     

The requirements in the Resolution depend on the intended use of the sanitising product (general or specific use, use in food industry or hospital products). Substances that are designated as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic for humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer are prohibited under the Resolution. 

Registrants must show that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or EU authorities have approved the active ingredients in the sanitising products. When these bodies have approved the product’s active ingredients manufacturers will need to submit the data specified in Annex I of Resolution RDC 774/2023.  

Information needed to register a sanitising product with ANIVSA: 

Resolution RDC 774/2023 prescribes the following new labelling requirements for sanitizing products: 

The labelling for corrosive or caustic products must contain the following 13 mandatory phrases: