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Tsunami of hazardous substances/chemicals information and regulation

There is a ‘tsunami’ of hazardous substances/chemicals information and regulation occurring around the world and it is coming to Australia, writes Laurie Glossop.

We have used the analogy of a tsunami for several reasons: tsunamis can have their origin a very long way from where they may have a final impact; you can warn people of its approach, but people are often not prepared; the tsunami doesn’t look that big at first, but once they start coming ashore they continue to build intensity there is no way to stop it; so powerful you cannot control it; they may only impact on a small percentage of the population initially, but it will affect the whole country; and of course other analogies which we will leave for you to discover.

You may ask: why is this tsunami of hazardous substances information and regulation coming? Australia has been here before in the late ‘80s and the first half of the ‘90s when there was the development of Model Regulations, Codes of Practice and Guidance Notes for hazardous substances. There are two reasons why we are having this ‘second wave’ of information and regulation; the united Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) development of Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (known as GHS1); and REACH, European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006). REACH deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances and entered into legal force on 1 June 20072. The REACH legislation is a completely different philosophical approach to historical legislation. The legislation makes the manufacturers totally responsible for classification based on their own research. This means different manufacturers of the same product could have a different classification – this could provide very ‘interesting’ situations.

Certainly in my lifetime, REACH will provide the greatest quantum leap in the knowledge of substances. Under REACH suppliers exporting into Europe or manufacturing in Europe will have to provide a very extensive list of physical and toxicological data for their substances. Substances used in high volume or those with serious health effects had to provide this data by the end of last year (2010). At the end of last year around 2,500 substances had to be registered and required to provide detailed toxicological information and how end users needed to control their substances in the workplace.

Many companies had to perform further toxicological testing to meet the requirements of REACH and some of this research has shown new toxic effects. It is likely there will more ‘bad’ news come out for substances, especially when possibly over 100,000 substances will have to be registered by 2018.

One requirement from REACH is that when registering a substance you also need to provide a Derived No-Effect Level data. In my opinion this will become a de-facto Occupational Exposure Limit, especially because there are only OELs for about 600 substances. Now there will be tens of thousands of DNELs in a few years’ time. There is also the Predicted No-Effect Concentration (PNECs) for environmental toxicity.

The manufacturers will have to provide a Chemical Safety Report which informs end users of how their substances are to be used and controlled. Essentially you will be provided with a risk assessment and necessary controls. There will also be the requirement to provide an extremely detailed Safety Data Sheet (same as Material Safety Data Sheet in Australia / US etc.).

Europe has supplementary regulations that go with REACH and ensure compliance with GHS. These regulations are called Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) and are already in force.

In regards to GHS (including Dangerous Goods) there are now criteria for environmentally hazardous substances. Traditionally dangerous goods have only related to things that have an immediate (acute) impact on humans, but this new environmental criteria will make many more substances dangerous goods. By way of example, many ore concentrates (for example nickel sulphide, lead sulphide, copper sulphide) were not previously dangerous goods, but because of environmental criteria they will now be dangerous goods. This is having a big impact already in Western Australia and Queensland.

GHS also now requires far more detail in Safety Data Sheets (SDSs). They have retained the 16 Sections as previously, but there are now many more sub-headings and much more information required. SDSs will likely be 10 pages long even for low hazard substances.

The other change from GHS for the SDSs and Labels are the new names of Hazard Statements and Precautionary Statements. Previously we have used the terms Risk Phrases and Safety Phrases. There are now many more Statements and the use of new Pictograms (see images). These requirements are likely to be legislated in Australia by the start of 2012. At this stage it is not certain if there will be a long phase-in period, but hopefully so because there is because a huge amount of work for producing SDSs and Labels.

The terminology is still confused with statements about substances, hazardous substances, hazardous chemicals, chemicals etc., but it may take time for this to be resolved.

The above has probably oversimplified what is happening, but hopefully you can appreciate the analogy of a tsunami.

Laurie Glossop B.Sc Ph.D COH MAIOH FAIOH

Laurie is a member of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, and has previously worked for what is now Worksafe WA. Laurie currently runs Glossop Consultancy, an occupational hygiene consultancy based in Western Australia.

References
1 http://live.unece.org/trans/danger/publi/ghs/implementation_e.html

2 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_intro.htm

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