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More than a thousand potentially hazardous chemicals often found in cosmetics and cleaning supplies remain unregulated on the European market, environmental activists say.

Green campaigners ClientEarth and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) say there has been little progress by the EU chemicals regulatory agency in tightening up oversight of the industry – a task it was charged with six years ago.

There are more than 30,000 chemicals used throughout Europe with little regulatory control and many pose a potential threat to the health of consumers, said Tatiana Santos, policy officer at the EEB.

“Incomplete, incorrect and irrelevant information is commonly found in the registration dossiers,” ClientEarth and the EEB found in a study.

“As a result of this, around 1,500 potentially very dangerous chemicals continue to be available on the European market.”

The Helsinki-based regulator ECHA (the European Chemicals Agency) says great strides have been made in maintaining chemical safety through REACH, a 2007 law meant to educate consumers and tighten supervision of the EU chemicals market.

ECHA’s main role is to enforce the law, but the agency said that enforcement is a shared responsibility among the European Commission, the member states, industry and other stakeholders like the EEB and ClientEarth.

“We agree that the implementation of REACH can be improved,” ECHA said in a written response to the report.