Chemicals Management

Some countries, like the u.s. and Canada, have well-developed regulatory systems governing commercial chemicals from manufacture through use and disposal. Other nations, notably many in the developing world, have limited or virtually no chemical management systems.

For years, governments at United Nations-sponsored meetings have endorsed the idea that chemicals should be managed to protect human health and the environment. This week, governments are on the verge of finishing an agreement designed to guide countries, especially those with weak regulatory systems, in managing chemicals safely.

That accord is called Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). The agreement, though not binding like a treaty, is an official road map for countries with scant expertise in managing substances in commerce or pollution. The chemical industry and environmental groups are carefully tracking the development of the new accord.

SAICM is primarily a tool kit of possible actions that countries can choose to improve chemical safety within their borders, says James B. Willis, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Chemical Control Division. SAICM is especially designed to help poorer countries with little expertise and few resources appropriately manage a wide variety of chemical-related situations, adds John Buccini, chief of the chemicals branch at the UN Environment Program (UNEP).

Buccini says the world needs SAICM for a variety of reasons. Nearly 1,000 new chemicals are commercialized each year, joining tens of thousands of industrial substances already on the market. The mix of chemicals in commerce is constantly changing, he says. Furthermore, Buccini adds, the chemical industry is shifting the manufacture of the substances it produces in the greatest volume from industrialized countries to the developing world. Also, developing countries are increasingly becoming the recipients of electronic waste containing hazardous chemicals, such as old computers, exported from rich nations, Buccini says.

The history of SAICM goes back several years. Broad ideals about chemical safety have floated around in UN circles since before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The chemicals management effort got a big push in early 2002 when UNEP's governing council called for talks on a concerted international approach.

The plan gained momentum later in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. There, governments agreed to establish and implement by 2020 a comprehensive approach for managing chemicals to minimize significant adverse effects on human health and the environment.

"We want SAICM to be a good road map to achieve the 2020 goals" outlined in Johannesburg, Willis says. Willis was director of chemicals for UNEP between 1995 and late 2004, where his duties included efforts to develop SAICM.

Kathleen (Katy) Kunzer, senior director of international affairs for the American Chemistry Council, says the chemical industry sees SAICM as an opportunity for countries to share more toxicity data and harmonize risk assessment processes. This cooperation offers advantages to governments, industry, and the public, she says.

Talks on SAICM kicked off in late 2003. The last of three rounds of negotiations on the agreement will take place in Vienna on Sept. 19-24. Final agreements will be adopted at the International Conference on Chemicals Management, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 4-6, 2006.

Four documents are expected to emerge from the SAICM negotiations, Buccini explains. The main document will be an overarching policy statement detailing what countries need to do to manage chemicals effectively, Buccini says. A second will lay out concrete steps that countries may choose for managing chemicals— a "cafeteria menu" of the sort of regulations or other actions a government can take to meet a country's particular needs. A third document is a policy declaration that Buccini characterizes as a "political manifesto" laying out in diplomatic language what SAICM is intended to achieve. And the fourth will establish a global process for implementation and oversight of SAICM to meet the 2020 goals established in Johannesburg, he says.

The overarching policy statement will address financial assistance to developing nations for chemicals management. Buccini notes that SAICM "just won't fly" if rich countries don’t contribute money to help the developing world.

Willis adds that language has been proposed—but not adopted—that the chemical industry help pay for government activities on management of chemicals. Proposals offered in the negotiations include national or global levies on chemicals.

The International POPs (persistent organic pollutants) Elimination Network, an environmental group, proposed the idea of a cost-recovery scheme involving a tax on commercial substances to help fund chemical safety activities in developing countries, explains Glenn Wiser, senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law. Developing nations have shown a great deal of interest in this suggestion, which is based on the internationally endorsed principle that "the polluter pays," Wiser says.

The chemical industry, not surprisingly, staunchly opposes paying for SAICM implementation or anything else that remotely resembles a tax on chemicals.

The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), which includes ACC, has drawn up a position statement on SAICM. The statement argues against an international tax on chemicals.

Such a plan, ICCA says, "can only work if all countries participate in such a scheme and introduce it at the same time and with the same tax rate," a circumstance "that seems to be unrealistic." In addition, a tax poses practical questions, such as when a levy should be applied to chemicals that are blended in a mixture that in turn is used to make other formulations, ICCA says.

Although the chemical industry opposes new taxes on its products, it is already financing a chemicals management effort, Kunzer says, pointing to the international Responsible Care program.

Wiser says it is extremely unlikely that negotiators in Vienna this week would agree to include the idea of a chemicals tax—especially a global one—in the final SAICM documents. But the idea remains in the minds of government officials from the developing world, he says.

Meanwhile, the chemical industry also is closely watching the menu of concrete measures, including regulatory strategies, that negotiators are developing. Willis says those measures touch on a range of issues, including children and chemical safety, occupational safety and health, good agricultural practices, cleaner production methods, lead in fuel, remediation of pollution, risk assessment and risk management, trade and environmental concerns, and liability and compensation schemes.

James Cooper, senior manager of chemicals policy for the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), says SAICM "started out as a noble thing" but "lost its way." Negotiators shifted from a strategic plan for chemicals management, with big-picture concepts, to a tactical one bogged down with details on concrete measures, he says.

Cooper and Kunzer both express concern that some of the proposed measures would regulate chemicals based on intrinsic hazard, such as toxicity. They, as well as EPA officials, favor a system that imposes controls based on a chemical’s risk, which factors in exposure as well as hazard.

Bans and mandatory substitutions of chemicals based solely on hazard information do not make sense for public health or economic reasons, Kunzer says. This strategy would take beneficial products off the market, she says.

Cooper agrees, saying SOCMA generally advocates managing a chemical’s risk over substitution. He adds, however, that replacing a hazardous chemical with another substance may be valid when a substitute is available and does not create unacceptable risks.

A reasonable regulatory system, Wiser argues, could help move chemical producers toward alternative products that pose fewer hazards if use of other substances is both feasible and affordable.

SOCMA is also concerned about a proposal to control the entry of new chemicals into the marketplace, Cooper says. Several European countries are pushing a "no-data, no-market" plan that prevents commercialization of a new chemical unless the manufacturer provides a basic set of toxicity data, he says.

This plan would stifle innovation because companies would have to divert research and development monies into toxicity testing, Cooper argues. And a no-data, no-market approach would fall especially hard on chemical intermediates, used to produce other substances, he adds.

Wiser disagrees, saying the assertion that a no-data, no-market approach would hurt innovation "has never been substantiated." Wiser says requiring data before commercialization is better than what he terms a "no-knowledge, no-problem" system that assumes that chemicals are safe even if no toxicity or exposure data exist.

Meanwhile, the pesticide industry is also weighing in on SAICM. Isi Siddiqui, vice president for science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, says pesticide manufacturers around the world believe that a new mechanism for regulating their products is not warranted. Pesticides are a class of chemicals that are already regulated globally, he says, pointing out that the UN's Food & Agriculture Organization for years has had a code of conduct for handling and managing pesticides. In addition, any new measures a country chooses to adopt under SAICM should not impede trade, Siddiqui says.

Many in the chemical industry are worried that parts of SAICM will look a lot like the European Union’s pending legislation for the registration, evaluation, and authorization of chemicals (REACH).

Willis says the EU has not made a concerted effort to put REACH concepts into the overarching policy document for SAICM. But some elements of REACH could become part of the list of concrete measures that governments may choose to implement, he says.

Buccini says REACH is a complex chemical management program that is beyond the technical expertise and national budget of many developing countries.

More information on the SAICM talks is available at www.chem.unep.ch/SAICM.