Following a recent decision by the European Commission (EC) the industrial use of PY.34 and PR.104 was rejected, this means that HMG will no longer to produce colour formulations using these pigments. As such HMG has taken the decision to remove all existing Lead Chrome containing formulations from our ColourBase software on 21st May 2022.

On 22 February 2022, HMG was informed of a decision by the European Commission (EC) about the outcome of the REACH Committee meeting on 07 December 2021: the voting via written procedure was negative and all current, industrial uses of PY.34 and PR.104 in the EEA were rejected.

The EC is now in the process of formalising the decision and getting all the required signatures, a process which can take up to at least 6 weeks. Only when this process is finalised and communicated in an official decision letter, we will know the exact end-date of use.

Based on the above, we estimate it will be by mid-March 2022 at the earliest when lead chromates cannot be used for industrial and professional use in Europe.

Over the last few years HMG has proactively worked on reformulating many lead crhome containing colours to lead free variations. If there are any particular colour queries, please contact the HMG Colour Library on 0161 205 7631 or email: colourlab@hmgpaint.com