B15.2: Development of an integrated risk management measure library

Description

REACH and other European legislation require that companies demonstrate the safe use and control of hazardous substances. For this purpose, the quantitative efficiency of Risk Management Measures (RMM) is required to evaluate the operational conditions (OCs) that are part of exposure scenarios in order to predict the resulting exposures or environmental concentrations. Presently, companies can obtain information on the quantitative efficiency of RMM from only a limited number of sources. Important sources are the CEFIC RMM Library, the TNO Exposure Control Efficacy Library (ECEL) and the OECD emission scenario documents. These sources vary in what they can offer in terms of the efficiency of RMMs. For example, the CEFIC RMM Library is a useful resource that provides a broad scope of occupational, environmental and consumer RMM that is aligned with REACH. Its user-friendliness is however limited due to its size and the chosen format. In addition, the library lacks quantitative efficiency values in many cases. On the other hand, the Exposure Control Efficacy Library (ECEL) is currently focused on occupational RMM data and allows a user to access a wide range of workplace control measures and their efficiency levels in a well-designed, searchable and user-friendly database structure. In addition, various other sources are available to provide exposure and emission control advice, e.g. the CEFIC library of standard phrases (ESCOM).

Considering the different RMM libraries available, it would be preferable to combine these efforts and resources in a single library as suggested before by CEFIC (LRI-B15). For this purpose, it is clear that a flexible data structure is needed to collect and collate RMM efficiency information, which should ideally include all occupational, environmental and consumer RMM data. The RMM library should be designed in an adaptable way so that in the future new information can easily be added.

The target group for using such a RMM library is expected to be industrial experts (occupational health and safety practitioners) who are responsible for the compliance with obligations stemming from the REACH Regulation. The idea of applying pooled estimates of ‘as-built’ and ‘as-used’ RMM efficiencies of different RMM (sub) classes seems to be a viable approach to estimate efficiency values that represent and incorporate RMM during typical conditions of use in practice. A clear and structured method to effectively disseminate information on the efficiency of RMM and a suitable and robust data analysis is of paramount importance to derive reliable efficiency values.