■ Trade Union Priority List for REACH Authorisation
3.3. Selecting the priority criteria
Among these substances, there are:
REACH article 58(3) specifies that the substances that shall normally be given priority to enter the Authorisation List (Annex XIV) are:
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1) PBT/very Persistent and very Bioaccumulative (vPvB), or 2) those substances which have dispersive use, or 3) those which are produced in high volumes
Based on these requirements, the priority criteria chosen in the Trade Union List are: 1. Workers´ exposure estimated through High Production Volume Chemicals (HPVC). 2. Occupational health and environmental effects.
The starting point of the Trade Union Priority List is therefore, the 2,782 substances included in the HPV Chemicals Information System which is part of ESIS (European chemical Substances Information System), from ECB31. These substances are produced in or imported into the EU in quantities greater than 1,000 tonnes/year. Due to the lack of real occupational and environmental exposure data, this HPV-chemical starting point is used as an indicator of wide exposure. However, we are aware that, for this same reason, many substances that have very dangerous properties for workers´ health and the environment may fall out of this priority list.
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Trade Union Priority List for REACH Authorisation ■
378 carcinogens (categories 1 or 2) 78 carcinogens (IARC 1 or 2A) 63 known endocrine disrupters 109 mutagens (categories 1 or 2) 80 reprotoxicants (categories 1 or 2) 137 sensitisers 182 neurotoxicants 60 carcinogens (category 3) 62 carcinogens (IARC 2B) 32 mutagens (category 3) 24 reprotoxicants (category 3)
At least 400 of these substances fall under any of the category of priority substances according to REACH Regulation (Article 57): CMR, PBT, etc.
3.4. Defining values for each criterion The priority criteria used to draw the Trade Union Priority List up are based on the European Union Risk Ranking Method for ranking the HPVC (EURAM), which takes into account several issues like the release into the environment, environmental exposure, human exposure, human health effects, etc. This is illustrated in the following table. >
European Chemicals Bureau: http://ecb.jrc.it/esis/index.php?PGM=hpv. 23