• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.237-256
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• 2024

Background: Human health and environment exposure assessments of chemicals are essential part for REACH and BPR as well as K-REACH and K-BPR. Several useful exposure assessment tools have been developed and updated to become extensively used during more than fifteen years of chemical registrations under REACH and their updates are still going on. Objectives: Evolution of regulatory tools for environment, workers and consumers exposure assessments under REACH is investigated focusing on why and how tools have been developed and updated for the future regulatory tools in Korea. Methods: REACH regulatory tools including EUSES, ECETOC TRA and CHESAR as well as built-in models SimpleTreat and SimpleBox were chosen with other frequently used Tier 1 and 2 tools. Available resources such as homepage information, background documents, related scientific reports, relevant journal publications, up-to-date lists of new version publications, release notes and user guides were reviewed extensively and summarized using easy-readable Tables and Figures. Results: SimpleTreat and SimpleBox are built-in models both for EUSES and ECETOC TRA (Environment). ECHA's CHESAR contains ECETOC TRA (Workers) and ECETOC TRA (Consumers) as well as EUSES and ECETOC TRA (Environment) for environment exposure assessment while results of Tier 2 Stoffenmanager and ConsExpoWeb can be imported. Evolution of CHESAR from version 1 (2010) to 3.8 (2023) has focused on the compatibility of frequent updates of IUCLID, importing functionality, editability, updated use maps, harmonised conditions of use as well as updates of the built-in tools evolved according to scientific development, refinements of the tool, increased conservatism and user-friendliness. CHESAR Platform 1.0 will soon be published to serve both for REACH and BPR. Conclusions: Updates of the tools can be successfully continued by transparency of the tools, participation of industry sectors for tool refinements and tool developers'/authorities' encouragements of partners/users to jointly innovate tools through scientific researches, tool validations and user feedback.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.312-323
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• 2023

Background: Environmental concentrations of substances can be estimated by K-CHESAR based on main, industrial, and use categories (MC/IC/UC) and ECETOC TRA based on environmental or specific environmental categories (ERC or spERC). Objectives: Three different systems for estimating environmental concentrations were compared to figure out their order with possible reasons along with relationship of regional predicted environmental concentrations (PEC_regional) and final PEC_local for various uses of a substance. Methods: Typical uses of the case substance and their corresponding ERCs were selected from the webpage of the European Chemical Agency. Proper MC/IC/UC and spERC were assigned to each ERC. Emission fractions were compared for each assessment code from the available database. PECs were calculated by three estimating systems: K-CHESAR using MC/IC/UC, ECETOC TRA using ERC, and ECETOC TRA using spERC with their default values for input parameters. Percentage of PEC_regional to PEC_local were manually calculated for each use. Results: Emission factors decreased in the order of ERC > MC/IC/UC > spERC. Values of the final PEC_local derived as sum of PEC_regional and Clocal decreased in the order of calculations using ECETOC TRA-ERC>KCHESAR with MC/IC/UC>ECETOC TRA-spERC for all environmental media. Percentages of PEC_{regional,water} to PEC_local,water ranged from 0 to 10.3% in industrial uses calculated with MC/IC/UC and ERC but 96.3 to 100% in wide dispersive uses of ERC and spERC where values of C_local,water are estimated to be very low. Conclusions: ECETOC TRA generated the most refined PNEC values with spERC and the least with ERC, while K-CHESAR with MC/IC/UC generated values between the two results. The ratio of PEC_regional to PEC_local can be a good measure for performing suitable estimation of PNECs according to use.

• Clean Technology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.285-299
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• 2011

As one of the REACH obligations, the extended safety data sheet (eSDS) should be communicated within the supply chain under the REACH Regulation. Based on technical guidance documents published on the ECHAs website and survey of EU's recent REACH-related informations, this paper includes a study on details of how to develop exposure scenarios (ES) such as structure of ES, process of ES develpoment, standard workflows and key input data to develop ES with an introduction of eSDS concept. This paper also contains an overview on operational conditions (OCs) and risk management measures (RMMs) that are what to consider when building an ES. The structure of Chesar (Chemical Safety Assessment and Report tool) developed by European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is studied with a review of the available exposure estimation tools for workers, environment and consumers. Case example of generic exposure scenario (GES) for organic solvent is presented. To guide Korean EU-exporting companies, their participating roles in three steps of preparing ES are addressed.