Last October, New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) opened the public feedback period on proposals to adopt the GHS Rev.7 classification system for hazardous substances in New Zealand (ChemLinked News [1]). The first round of consultation concluded in January 2020, and five months later, EPA initiated the second round of consultation and published the Submissions Analysis Report of the first round consultation on June 8, 2020. The second round of consultation will conclude on August 4, 2020.
According to EPA’s notice [2], submitters on the first round of consultation were generally in favor of moving to the GHS classification system, so the consultation on the next stage of the project was initiated. Five proposals subject to public comments in the second round of consultation:
To assign proposed GHS 7 classifications to all individual hazardous substances approved or reassessed before 1 January 2020, including those that EPA is planning to revoke;
To propose “fates” (retain or revoke the approval) for all individual hazardous substances approved or reassessed before 1 January 2020.
Note: For those individual approvals to be revoked, EPA will include the name and approval number of the relevant group standard(s) under which the approval can be managed.
To update the 208 group standards to apply GHS 7 classifications.
To update the controls placed on substances approved or reassessed before 1 December 2017 to take account of the health and safety reforms implemented on 1 December 2017.
To amend the Hazardous Property Controls Notice to no longer require signage for agrichemicals on the basis of their terrestrial ecotoxicity hazards.
After each proposal, questions are also posed to help submitters prepare their comments. The exposure drafts of the amended Notices, proposed group standards, and proposed classifications and fates of approved substances, etc. are provided as appendices of the consultation for reference. Comments can be submitted on the online system or e-mailed to HSnotices@epa.govt.nz.
