For approximately 4 years Australia’s National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS) has been in the process of development of a standardized framework for qualitative and quantitative assessment of industrial chemicals. Since 2008 NICNAS in collaboration with industry have worked to establish a framework governing chemicals listed on the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances (AICS). Over the course of four years the NICNAS framework developed heuristically through constant communication and feedback between government and industry culminating in the development of the Inventory Multi-tiered Assessment and Prioritization (IMAP) assessment framework. The organic evolution of IMAP has afforded its developers the advantage of hindsight and IMAP has drawn from many of the best elements of global regulatory networks.
According to Australia’s NICNAS the purpose of IMAP is “the identification and rapid assessment of existing chemicals of concern, leading to enhancements in chemical safety information flow and chemicals management”.
The fundamental tenant of IMAP is founded on proportionally increasing risk management obligations for substances with increasing hazard potential. The assessment is subdivided into a stratified hierarchy composed of 3 tiers with increasing characterization, safety and testing demands for each sequential tier. Modeling existing regulatory frameworks IMAP borrows heavily from global regulatory experience and utilizes both technical data and chemical safety exposure data generated globally to appropriately categorize chemicals into the correct tiers.
IMAP is being phased in gradually and the NICNAS has categorized chemicals listed on the AICS to be assessed in discrete stages that will be rolled out in a sequential fashion. Priority chemicals numbering approximately 3,000 chemicals are being initially tested in the first stage which began on July 2012. Out of these 3,000 first stage chemicals 800 have begun the assessment process. When the first stage is complete an external audit will take place and recommendations for refinements to the process will ensue to ensure continued development of the IMAP framework.
As the outcomes of IMAP for priority chemicals are produced NICNAS compile lists of the results in tranches which are then made publically available for comment. Tranche one was published on December 2012, whilst Tranche two has been recently published on March 2013. NICNAS is giving interested parties opportunity to comment on the assessment outcomes of the second tranche of IMAP assessments within six weeks of their initial publication. The public comment period ends at close of business on 7 May 2013 (this takes into account public holidays).
