Box 17A Current knowledge on the toxicity of existing chemicals

The European Inventory of Existing (commercial) Chemical Substances (EINECS) lists more than 100 000 individual substances. Around 1000 of these are used for 95 per cent of the total production of chemicals in Europe.

The EC Existing Chemicals Directive (93/793/EEC) is expected to lead to a significant improvement in basic information about chemicals over a three-stage long-term programme.

In 1984 the US National Research Council (USNRC) published statistics on the availability of toxicity data for a selected choice of around 50 000 chemicals which were used in the USA at that time (USNRC, 1984). Particularly noteworthy from these statistics are the large number of chemicals involved and the general lack of toxicity data for them ­ both the more basic, high-volume chemicals, as well as those produced in smaller quantities. A separate more recent study (USEPA, 1991) shows that the main substances released to water are industrial chemicals (about 60 per cent of the total in 1989). However, the USNRC statistics show that little toxicological information is available for these chemicals, such information being confined mainly to pesticides, cosmetics, drugs and food additives. The general lack of toxicological information for chemicals should be seen against the fact that almost 80 per cent of hazardous waste comes from the chemical industries (UNEP, 1992a) (see also Chapter 15).

A thorough and systematic risk assessment and risk management of chemicals can be performed only with complete information of all existing, commercially available chemicals. The size of this task is such that international programmes have been initiated, which collect data and coordinate the results. These programmes are the main sources of information concerning chemicals. They include:

• the EC Existing Chemicals Directive and notification scheme;
• the chemical programme of the OECD (voluntary);
• the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC from UNEP);
• the International Programme of Chemical Safety (IPCS from WHO, UNEP and ILO);
• the ECETOC programme (European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology) sponsored by the chemical industries in Europe;
• ECDIN (Environmental Chemicals Data and Information Network) of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre;
• IARC (International Agency for Research in Cancer); and
• those of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN) for evaluating chemicals in food.

Currently IRPTC has a data profile for about 800 chemicals. The profiles include 17 different categories of general and dangerous qualities of each chemical. The legal file records data from 12 different countries and 6 international organisations, and in 1989 it contained 42 000 records on more than 8000 chemicals (Lönngren, 1992).