Ordinance
on Protection against Dangerous Substances and Preparations
(Chemicals Ordinance, ChemO)

¹ This Or­din­ance reg­u­lates:

a.

the de­term­in­a­tion and as­sess­ment of dangers and risks that sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions may pose to hu­man life and health and to the en­vir­on­ment;

b.

the con­di­tions un­der which sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions that may en­danger people or the en­vir­on­ment are placed on the mar­ket;

c.

the hand­ling of sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions that may en­danger people or the en­vir­on­ment;

d.

the way in which data re­lat­ing to sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions is pro­cessed by the en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies.

² This Or­din­ance ap­plies to biocid­al products and the act­ive sub­stances con­tained therein, and to plant pro­tec­tion products and the act­ive sub­stances and co-for­mu­lants con­tained therein, in­so­far as they are re­ferred to in the Or­din­ance of 18 May 2005 on Biocid­al Products⁷ or the Or­din­ance of 20 Au­gust 2025⁸ on Plant Pro­tec­tion Products.⁹

^2bis This Or­din­ance ap­plies to to­bacco products and elec­tron­ic ci­gar­ettes in terms of Art­icle 3 let­ters a–f of the To­bacco Products Act of 1 Oc­to­ber 2021¹⁰ and for sim­il­ar products that are deemed equi­val­ent thereto in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 of the To­bacco Products Or­din­ance of 28 Au­gust 2024¹¹ (TabPO) in­so­far as they are re­ferred to in the TabPO.¹²

³ This Or­din­ance ap­plies to ra­dio­act­ive sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions, ex­clud­ing ef­fects at­trib­ut­able to the ra­dio­act­ive nature of these sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions.

⁴ Only Art­icles 5–7 and 81 ap­ply to cos­met­ic products with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 53 para­graph 1 of the Or­din­ance of 16 Decem­ber 2016¹³ on Food­stuffs and Util­ity Art­iclesin the form of fin­ished products in­ten­ded for private or pro­fes­sion­al users, and only with re­gard to en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and to clas­si­fic­a­tion or as­sess­ment in re­la­tion to risks to the en­vir­on­ment.¹⁴

⁵ This Or­din­ance does not ap­ply to:

a.

the trans­port of sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions by road, rail, wa­ter, air or pipelines, with the ex­cep­tion of Art­icle 10 para­graph 1 let­ter b;

b.

the trans­it of sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions un­der cus­toms su­per­vi­sion, provided that this does not in­volve any pro­cessing or trans­form­a­tion;

c.

sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions in the form of fin­ished products ready for sup­ply to private and pro­fes­sion­al users that fall in­to the fol­low­ing cat­egor­ies:¹⁵

1.¹⁶

food­stuffs as defined by Art­icle 4 of the Food­stuffs Act of 20 June 2014¹⁷ (FoodA),

2.

medi­cin­al products as defined by Art­icle 4 para­graph 1 let­ter a and med­ic­al devices as defined by Art­icle 4 para­graph 1 let­ter b of the Thera­peut­ic Products Act of 15 Decem­ber 2000¹⁸,

3.

an­im­al feed­ing­stuffs as defined by Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 of the Feed­stuffs Or­din­ance of 26 Oc­to­ber 2011¹⁹;

d.

weapons and am­muni­tion as defined by Art­icle 4 para­graphs 1 and 5 of the Weapons Act of 20 June 1997²⁰;

e.

sub­stances, pre­par­a­tions and ob­jects which are waste ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 7 para­graph 6 of the EPA.

⁶ Art­icles 57, 62 and 67 ap­ply to im­por­ted sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions that are simply re­la­belled and then ex­por­ted without al­ter­a­tion.²¹

⁷ Dan­ger­ous sub­stances and pre­par­a­tions that are ex­por­ted are also gov­erned by the PIC Or­din­ance of 10 Novem­ber 2004²².²³