Global regulation of chemicals is accelerating

08 March 2007 00:30  [Source: ICIS news]

BALTIMORE, Maryland (ICIS news)--Worldwide regulation of chemical products is growing at an accelerating rate and is likely to see still faster gains, posing challenges to industry, a chemicals regulatory specialist said on Wednesday.

 

Jeff Hafer, product steward for Rohm and Haas and a specialist in global industrial chemical control laws and regulations, said the number of regulatory programmes affecting chemicals has been increasing since the late 1990s and likely will continue to accelerate as global commerce increases and more developing nations initiate chemicals management systems.

 

He said the acceleration could be dated to 1998 with onset of the US high production volume (HPV) programme, designed to determine the environmental impact of a large number of chemicals already in wide commercial use. 

 

The HPV measure was followed by a variety of national programmes designed to establish definitively the environmental impact of chemical inventories that previously had been assumed safe simply because they were in general commercial use with no apparent environmental or human health consequences.

 

New Zealand initiated a new testing programme in 2001, followed by China’s first significant foray into chemicals regulation in 2002 and broad revision of substance controls in Japan and Australia in 2004.  Further Canadian regulations came in 2005 and Korea revised its chemicals rules in 2006.  The European Union (EU) approved its massive registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (Reach) programme late last year.

 

Reviewing substance management systems for executives at the GlobalChem regulatory conference, Hafer said the growth of chemical controls worldwide is in part driven by expanding global commerce and the emergence of an increasing number of developing nations as chemical producers and players in international chemicals trade.

 

Emerging economies, such as China, he noted, also are driven to implement chemical management systems as part of the requirements for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

The widening field of national and regional chemical regulatory programmes likely will continue to expand, Hafer said, as more developing countries acquire industrial production capability.  He said Vietnam is now developing a chemicals regulation plan in anticipation of its application for WTO membership.

 

“All this means that there is no simple and easy way to keep up with regulatory changes in the global market because the changes are continual," Hafer said. He urged executives responsible for corporate compliance to always consult original regulatory references for any country in which their products are sold, directly or through downstream manufacturers.

 

Co-sponsored by the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (Socma) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the GlobalChem conference runs through Friday.

By: Joe Kamalick
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