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OECD's 36th Joint Meeting of the Chemicals Committee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology. Paris, 3-6 February 2004
The Joint Meetings consist of two meetings focusing on pesticides and industrial chemicals, which then combine for general policy issues. It is attended by OECD countries and those who have been accepted to mutually exchange chemical data. South Africa joined the forum as a full member this meeting.
Pesticides Working Group
The environment representation in the Pesticides Working Group is provided for by a dedicated seat for Pesticide Action Network International and was filled at this meeting by Stephanie Williams of PAN UK. Sue Connor and Mariann Lloyd-Smith from NTN Committee also attended for the first day (second day overlaps with industrial chemicals) as did the NGO representative on the Australian delegation, John Wickens.
The meeting was predominantly designed as an information exchange session with the reports of other working groups and taskforces submitted. As with the industrial chemicals meeting there was considerable emphasis on harmonisation and mutual acceptance of registration data, work sharing, and electronic data exchange through the use of standardised templates and the use of QSARs. One stated goal of streamlining registration processes was to save industry money.
Regulatory Assessment of Persistency and Bioaccumulation
One of the most interesting reports focused on the similarities and differences between OECD countries’ pesticide registration schemes in their assessment of persistency and bioaccumulation. Building on a previous assessment survey, this case study report focused on a specific substance. It demonstrated that there were no harmonised agreements on classifying persistency or bioaccumulation. Different countries used varying datasets and differed in their approaches to hazard or risk assessment, eg use of different cut off values in different mediums. This resulted in wide variations in their subsequent decision-making. The report highlighted Australia and Slovakia as being an exception to the rule by using ‘emission mitigation measures’ to ameliorate the adverse impacts of persistency and bioaccumulation. In the discussions that followed Australia disputed this statement and organised to provide additional comments.
The European Commission reminded the delegates that persistency and bioaccumulation were clearly defined in the articles of the REACH system. The discussion ended in the decision to hold a workshop on persistency and bioaccumulation in the near future.
The Registration Steering Group reported on a similar project where toxicology reviews on two substances from Germany and the USA were compared. It concluded that there were real differences in their approaches to science and that there policy and scientific evaluations were consistently different.
OECD Pesticides Public Database
Pesticide Working Group was also asked to consider whether a data base including a Pesticide and Biocide Review Schedule be made publicly available on the OECD website. There was general support for this apart from the Australian delegate who said their legislation would not allow access to information on what pesticides have registration applications pending and that there was no immediate timeframe for a change in the legislation. In discussions later with the Australian delegate, we were informed that under Australian legislation the existence of an application for registration is considered commercial in confidence. The discussion ended with a decision to go ahead with the public database but not include Australia.
Vision for the Future: A global approach to the regulation of agricultural pesticides
Delegates were asked to comment and provide input into the Vision for the Future: A global approach to the regulation of agricultural pesticides. While there was general support for the publication of the Vision, the intergovernmental organisation, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) argued that there should be clear reference to international activities and the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions should be cited. This proposal was rejected.
In the discussion on risk reduction activities there was a report of the Terrestrial Risk Indicator Project, which was looking at the availability of indicators, the difficulty of using them as well as a how much data was available and what was missing. There was an extended discussion on the use and harmonisation of electronic templates but there remained no clear agreement of what type of template they were discussing, let alone which would be optimal.
Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent
The meetings did provide a good opportunity for ENGOs for intelligence gathering at a global level. We learnt that the notifications of the Rotterdam Convention’s prior informed consent procedure were running into difficulties because some developing countries were conducting hazard assessments only to create national responses but were generally unwilling or unable to carry out the minimal risk assessments required to nominate chemicals for PIC listing.
* An opportunity for NGOs could be the provision of standardised risk assessment software and relevant capacity building and training to empower those countries to submit risk assessments in order to increase the chance of PIC listing of chemicals of concern, eg endosulphan.
Industrial Chemicals
There was far more discussion and debate in the meeting on industrial chemicals. The NGO representation is provided for by the ECO seat. The NGO delegation was made up of Richard Denison from Environmental Defense, USA, Sue Connor and Mariann Lloyd-Smith from National Toxics Network. John Wickens also attended as the NGO representative on thee Australian delegation.
New Chemicals
Chemicals of Low Regulatory Concern
Under the topic of New Chemicals, there was an extensive discussion on the class of chemicals referred to as low priority or low concern. However, this does not infer low hazard but rather low regulatory concern in that these types of chemicals would not require a full regulatory assessment.
The definitions of chemicals of low priority received considerable attention and the NGOs present supported the stated concerns of Japan (and others) that it was unacceptable to include impurities (which would encompass dioxins) as chemicals of low priority. It was argued that the risk of chemicals is often dominated by the presence of impurities as was evident with dioxin in 245T and some formulations of 24D. Many countries have regulatory threshold values for hazardous impurities and to exempt all impurities flies in the face of these regulatory approaches to contaminants. Other definitions of concern included non isolated intermediates and mixtures.
Commercial Business Information (CBI).
Under New Chemicals, the agenda papers included a note that there would be a new definition of commercial business information (CBI). Any new definitions of CBI need to be developed with full input of civil society as they should be balanced against the public interest (as was seen in for example Article 9 of the Stockholm Conventions where certain information on the health and safety of humans and the environment cannot be claimed as CBI. Definitions developed by international organizations such as the OECD can easily be interpreted with time as “ customary norms” impacting on programs and schemes far beyond the original intent. Despite the agenda item, the secretariat assured us that no definitions had been submitted rather a draft paper describing the general legal framework had been circulated in the Task Force on new chemicals. We are now attempting to obtain that paper for followup.
Mutual Acceptance of Notifications
The issue of the Mutual Acceptance of Notifications or MAN requires considerable scrutiny. ENGOs rejected the concept that once a hazard assessment had been completed by one country, then assessment of risk by all other countries could be simply based on the use and volume. It had been argued that this was all that was needed to characterise the differences in exposure potential and therefore between current and future OECD countries. We argued that there are wide cultural, social and environmental difference among countries particularly those in different climatic zones (a notion that has readily been accepted in the notification process of the Rotterdam Convention) and that these differences need to be seriously considered in assessing exposure and risk.
An even more worrying consideration is that countries would accept the assessment of the first country to assess an industrial chemical, whether or not the original assessment fulfilled the following country's own national information requirements. For example, the US registering a new industrial chemical may only require the company to submit currently available data, some of which may have been generated by QSAR modelling software and which may not even include environmental fate data or information on human health. This means that the definition of a base sector data is both essential and urgent.
It was noted that CBI and transparency of decision making was a major obstacle to establishing parallel processes.
(Quantitative) Structure-Activity Relationships
A presentation on the (Q)SAR Project which is developing validation principles prompted calls for caution as it was argued that the field of QSARs was very dynamic and OECD should avoid hindering the development and availability of new QSARs. The US delegate argued that the regulatory framework should drive validation principles whereas the ENGOs stressed that QSAR estimation models needed to be matched with real test data to validate findings and build public confidence. BIAC noted the use of QSARs as a preliminary screening tool as their preference.
Participation
The meeting considered the outcomes and recommendations of the first preparatory meeting for the Strategic Approach on International Chemical Management (SAICM PREPCOM1). NGOs welcomed the encouragement of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) for civil society to actively take part in the work related to the seven specific tasks given to the OECD. However, we noted that the IFCS provides significant support for the participation of civil society in their forums and while in principle, the OECD provides opportunities for participation, the funds to support this involvement are extremely limited (EEB) and there is no assistance for civil society to capacity build its representatives to take part. NGOs requested that OECD and member countries to investigate innovative ways and means to further promote involvement of civil society in the priority tasks and in the work of OECD in general. These included not only the provision of more equitable financial support but also the increased use and availability of teleconferencing.
Pollution Release Transfer Register (PRTR)
An extended session was given to the presentation on PRTRs. It presented the current work on PRTRs by the OECD including the publication of a range of emission estimation techniques, as well as outlining future directions including a greater emphasis on small and medium business and a widening of the PRTR program to include products. This initiated a lot of discussion with many delegates including Australia, Canada and Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC), opposing the inclusion of products. However, it was argued that at all stages of a products life including the consumer use phase there were emissions which needed to be estimated and included in a PRTR. There was strong support for this work in Nordic and EU countries with Sweden having already started.
While acknowledging there were financial and technical constraints, we argued for the inclusion of emissions from domestic products as essential to track the complete fate and life cycle of chemicals. It was also noted that it would better inform consumers of the ramification of their lifestyles and purchasing behaviour. We also raised the inclusion of off target releases of agricultural chemicals in the emission estimation manual. In the Chair's summary, it was noted that the inclusion of products would need to be undertaken with caution.
Risk Management
Perfluorochemicals
The assessment of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), began at the 34th meeting where Australia took the lead in assessing countries use of this group of chemicals. A PFOS clearing house was initiated at the 35th Joint Meeting in June 2003. At the 36th meeting, Australia was arguing for the widening of the survey to include another group of perflourochemicals, the perfluorooctanoic acids (PFOA).
A recent preliminary risk assessment by the US on PFOAs had indicated adverse effects, persistency and wide distribution. PFOAs are used in the manufacture of consumer products such as clothing and cosmetics, and in the production of fluoropolymers for non-stick coatings for cookware. PFOAs may also be the degradation products of small polymers called telomers. These are used in a range of commercial products including fire fighting foams, as well as soil, stain and grease resistant coatings on carpets, textiles, paper, and leather. Most commonly, fluorinated telomers are used to keep grease from soaking through fast food containers such as pizza boxes, French fry holders, and food wrapping paper. Once in the digestive system, telomers break down into PFOA and related chemicals. In one study, the metabolite specific to the telomers was found in 85 per cent of the children tested.
A 2002 European study detected PFOS and PFOA in cetaceans, tuna, swordfish, salmon, cormorants and sea eagles. Levels in cetaceans have been measured at around 1000 ppb in dolphin and seals. PFOAs have also been detected in foods such as beans, bread and ground beef.
At the OECD Joint Meeting on Chemicals (Nov.2002), it was reported that PFOS had been detected not only in adults and wildlife, but in 100% of a sample of nearly 600 US children, aged from 2-12 years. A 2003 study of PFOS and PFOA in the U.S. Red Cross blood banks, estimated the average concentrations in humans to be 30-40 parts per billion (ppb), with males having higher levels.
While some countries have started assessment or taken regulatory action on perflouro chemicals, there was broad opposition to broadening the OECD Clearinghouse survey to include PFOAs as well as PFOS. The survey will collect national information on where perflourochemicals are being used and whether countries intend to phase them out. Some country's delegates were unaware that the US had completed a Preliminary Risk Assessment on PFOAs. The expansion of the survey was eventually accepted. It was good to see Australia acknowledging strong domestic concern regarding the perflourochemicals.
The NGOs present argued that there is a real urgency to address the PFOS/PFOAs issue and this is not reflected in the time frame of the OECD work activities on perflourochemicals. An internationally accepted assessment of perflourochemicals is needed to ensure their global phaseout and rapid elimination.
Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs)
The 34th OECD Joint Meeting had recommended on the basis of an industry survey that there be an action plan to fill major datagaps on BFRs and continue the Voluntary Industry Committment (VIC). A document containing hazard/risk information on five BFRs (PentaBDE, OctaBDE, DecaBDE, Hexabromododecane/HBCD, Tetrabromobisphenol/TBBPA) was provided to this meeting. These were very limited in scope and all factsheets noted data gaps and recommended further studies.
The section looking at possible substitutes was very minimal with most simply proposing alternative BFRs; eg the alternative proposed for decaBDE for upholstery textiles was HBCD and for HBCD it was decaBDE.
It was noted that "the Nordic countries are working togetrher to nominate pentaBDE as a POP candidate first for the UNECE POP Protocol and then for the UNEP POP Convention.
BIAC also gave a presentation on the VIC for managing emissions of decaBDE. They commented that there was no concern for human health from decaBDE based on risk assessments from UK and France. UK responded that these were on the basis of standard tests but you would not get the same results with non standard tests.
BIAC noted that the levels in sediment are at ppb range and are increasing. The fact sheet lists the possible formation of more accumulative and toxic congeners from photolytic processes in the environment. BIAC argued that deca using industries could control their emissions and do but should only be limited by best practical means rather than best available techniques. There was discussion on extending the timelimit required for reporting the VIC programs from two years to three which we opposed.
NGOs argued that body burden information was essential to include in the factsheets and that the rate of OECD assessment was too slow and that the VICs timeframes did not reflect the urgency of the issue. Through the risk management activities of the OECD there is the potential for significant flow-on to the identification of new POPs candidates and those chemicals to be added to the lists of the Rotterdam Convention.
Contacts:
Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith
Coordinator, National Toxics Network
Australian Focal Point for International POPs Elimination Network
47 Eugenia Street Rivett
ACT Australia 2611
ABN 61 118 160 280
Phone/Fax (Int) 612 62885881
http://www.oztoxics.org
Email: biomap@oztoxics.org
Ms Sue Connor
NTN European Officer
Rozenstraat 98b
1016 NX
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Ph: +31 020 427 0865
sue.connor@hekerua.net
John Wickens
Technical Advisor
National Toxics Network
47 Eugenia Street Rivett
ACT Australia 2611
ABN 61 118 160 280
Phone/Fax (Int) 612 62885881
http://www.oztoxics.org
Email: biomap@oztoxics.org
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