REACHNANO

ABSTRACT

The overall aim of REACHnano project is to improve the protection of environment and health from risk posed by chemicals by supporting the implementation of the REACH regulation with regard to nanomaterials, whose use raise many questions and generate concerns due to their potential health and environmental risks.

Within the context of REACH, the main issue pertaining to the use of chemicals in whatever size, shape or physical state, is to ensure their safety to the human health and the environment, therefore, since its entry into force on 1 June 2007, REACH plays a central role to ensure the protection of environment and health from risk posed by chemicals and to promote sustainable development. To this end, under the REACH legislation, for substances manufactured or imported in quantities of 1 tonne or more per year per company, manufacturers and importers need to demonstrate that they have appropriately identified and assessed the risk by means of a registration dossier, which must be submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), including information on physicochemical, toxicological and ecotoxicological properties, and the corresponding risk assessment.

Taking into account the current situation, all available information on the substance has to be gathered and considered for the registration, however in certain cases already exits a lack of information on toxicological and ecotoxicological properties, dosimetry parameters or even standardized risk assessment methods, which make difficult the direct application of REACH regulation. This is the case of nanomaterials, defined as a material having at least one dimension of 100 nanometres or less, which properties are often exceedingly different to those demonstrated by the bulk forms.

In order to address these major concerns and considering the priority areas of LIFE +, the main objective of the project is to provide innovative instruments to improve the implementation of REACH when manufacturing or handling materials or substances at the nanometer scale through the development of a web based Help Desk tool to support the risk assessment and promote the safety use of nanomaterials along their life cycle, providing the industry and stakeholders with easy to use tools to support the implementation of REACH regulation.

To this end, the toolkit to be developed within REACHnano project will take into account the needs and specifications of end-users and stakeholders, including advanced functionalities that will support industry and authorities to fulfil their main task under REACH, with special concern to those provisions aimed at ensuring high levels of human health and environmental protection such as the generation of reliable information in terms of REACH information requirements , the assessment of risk for the specific uses of the substances (i.e. exposure scenarios) and the characterization of effective risk managements measures (RMM). Moreover, this interactive web application will provide an innovative tool to share and exchange information between the scientific community and politicians, enhancing science-policy integration in support of REACH legislation.