RFI News

World Bank guidance developed by RFI advises developing countries on potential uses of Canada's chemical assessment results to strengthen their chemical management programs

October 30, 2007 - The World Bank contracted the services of Resource Futures International to examine Canada's categorization exercise of its 23,000 existing industrial chemicals and explore the potential benefits this information can have for integrated chemicals management programmes in developing countries and countries with economies-in-transition.

The project recognizes that many developing countries and countries with economies-in-transition lack the depth of technical expertise and financial resources required to screen the thousands of chemicals they produce, consume, and trade each year. As the chemicals industry and consumption of chemicals continues to expand in many of these countries at a rapid pace, so does the need for information on the risks these chemicals may pose.

The RFI Chemical Categorization Report provides practical advice on how Canada's screening results can be used within national chemical risk reduction programs, while also providing a detailed summary of the screening methodology Canada's assessment agencies employed during its extensive, seven-year screening effort.

The focus of screening by Environment Canada was on those chemicals exhibiting the characteristic properties of persistence and/or bioaccumulation, and inherent toxicity to non-human organisms. Health Canada also screened the full list of 23,000 chemicals for chemicals with properties associated with carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, developmental toxicity or reproductive toxicity. In addition to chemical characteristics, the screening exercise determined which chemicals on the list exhibited the greatest potential for human exposure, or an intermediate potential for exposure.

The highest priority group of chemicals that meet categorization criteria includes some 400 chemicals that are slated for further assessment because they were deemed to be persistent, bioaccumulative and inherently toxic (PBiT) to non-human organisms. The Canadian government has also indicated that it will impose some restrictions on new uses of up to 150 chemicals that pose a high hazard to human health. RFI's report recognizes that criteria used within Canada to determine next steps for regulating chemicals, e.g., the potential for exposure as well as hazard posed, will need to be considered by each country in is own development context. The report is sufficiently detailed to assist countries that may wish to tailor or adapt Canada's methodology to their own situations.

RFI's report was developed with input from RFI associates Dr. John Buccini (former chair of the UNEP Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee which resulted in adoption of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants) and Mr. Victor Shantora, formerly director general of Environment Canada's chemicals assessment program, and the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation's Pollutants and Health Programme. The authors, who both have extensive experience working in developing nations, conducted numerous interviews with agency screening and assessment staff.