Suchergebnisse

Technology assessments in Europe have mainly focused on air quality management with respect to energy conversion and road transport. However, other environmental media must also be considered to arrive at an integrated perspective for developing strategies towards more sustainability and an improved human welfare. Consequently, bioaccumulation of pollutants in the environment, in food crops and in animal food products leads to human ingestion exposure that must be accounted for. In addition, growing crops for use as energy, biofuels and non-energy raw materials becomes more and more important in the context of current policy. Unfortunately, only little is known about how the health of the general population is affected by current agriculture in Europe, especially with respect to the use of pesticides. Over the last three decades, European policy has developed towards a large legislation body regulating the marketing and use of pesticides as well as their residues in drinking water and various food items. Nonetheless, residues are still reported to reach levels where they can harm humans or the environment. Especially effects of pesticides on human health have lead to a continuously concerned general public. Existing regulations are therefore under constant revision by steadily evaluating the negative consequences of pesticide application based on continuously required scientific support. Thereby, evaluating exposure to pesticides and related health effects must build upon a deterministic understanding of the pathways from substance application via loss to the environment and uptake into the different food crops to finally human intake. However, current assessment tools are still challenged by the inherent complexity of plant uptake and translocation mechanisms as well as by an insufficient understanding of substance-specific chemical transformation, post-harvest food processing and health effects. The present work, hence, aims at improving existing health impact assessments of pesticide use by contrasting pathways of human exposure to pesticides. Main challenges were to consider characteristics of different food crops, to characterize individual pesticide-crop combinations and to simplify a complex dynamic model for incorporation into existing assessment tools to also account for the pesticide fraction that directly reaches the target crops. To address these challenges, a new operational modeling approach was developed for quantifying health impacts from exposure to pesticide residues in multiple directly treated food crops based on transparent matrix algebra. From analyzing its functioning and uncertainty, the system was parameterized for use in existing models, thereby keeping crops and substances disaggregated. In a case study, the new approach was applied to estimate health impacts and related damage costs caused by the five most extensively used pesticides in each of 25 European countries in 2003. Results indicate a high variation of impacts between countries as a function of the amount applied and substance toxicity. Total health impacts amount to 1672 DALY (disability-adjusted life years), to which the fraction reaching the target crops and the fraction lost to the environment during application contribute with 97% and 3%, respectively. Spain with 485, Italy with 442 and France with 370 DALY show the highest impacts per country. If translated into costs, damages amount to 67 million Euro in Europe in 2003. Results demonstrate the importance of considering pesticide residues in treated food crops for estimating overall human health impacts as integral part of evaluating current pesticide use in Europe. ; Technikbewertung in Europa war bisher hauptsächlich fokussiert auf Luftreinhaltemaßnahmen im Rahmen der Energieumwandlung und des Straßenverkehrs. Jedoch müssen für einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz zur Erreichung von mehr Nachhaltigkeit und eines verbesserten Gemeinwohls auch weitere Umweltmedien berücksichtigt werden. Diesbezüglich führt die Schadstoffanreicherung in der Umwelt, in Nahrungspflanzen und tierischen Produkten zur menschlichen Exposition über die Nahrungsaufnahme. Auch der wachsende Kulturpflanzenanbau zur Energie-, Biokraftstoff- und Rohmaterialien-Produktion spielt eine wichtige Rolle für die aktuelle Politik. Leider ist bisher nur wenig darüber bekannt, wie sich die heutige Landwirtschaft auf die menschliche Gesundheit auswirkt, insbesondere bezüglich der Nutzung von Pestiziden. In den letzten drei Jahrzehnten wurden in Europa Richtlinien zur Regulierung von Vermarktung und Anwendung von Pestiziden als auch zur Kontrolle von Rückständen in Trinkwasser und Nahrungsmitteln erarbeitet. Trotzdem finden sich Rückstandsmengen, die auf Mensch und Umwelt schädlich wirken können. Insbesondere Gesundheitsschäden führten zu einer kontinuierlich besorgten Bevölkerung. Bestehende Regulierungen unterliegen deshalb der ständigen Überprüfung hinsichtlich negativer Auswirkungen des Pestizideinsatzes auf Basis wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse. Dabei ist eine deterministische Betrachtungsweise der gesamten Wirkungskette vom Pestizideinsatz über den Transport in der Umwelt und in Nahrungspflanzen bis zur Aufnahme durch den Menschen entscheidend für die Abschätzung von Gesundheitsbelastungen. Bisherige Bewertungsmodelle haben jedoch bis heute sowohl mit der Komplexität von Schadstoffflüssen in Pflanzen als auch mit unzureichenden Kenntnissen bezüglich chemischen Stoffumbaus, Nahrungsmittelverarbeitung und Gesundheitseffekten zu kämpfen. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll durch den Vergleich von menschlichen Expositionspfaden gegenüber Pestiziden bestehende Methoden zur Bewertung des Pestizideinsatzes verbessern. Besondere Herausforderungen waren die Betrachtung verschiedener Nutzpflanzen, die Charakterisierung einzelner Pestizid/Pflanze-Kombinationen und die Einbindung des Ansatzes in bestehende Bewertungsmodelle zur Berücksichtigung der Rückstände in Nahrungspflanzen. Zur Bewältigung dieser Herausforderungen wurde ein neues Bewertungsmodell zur Quantifizierung von Gesundheitsschäden durch Pestizidrückstände in Nahrungspflanzen auf Basis eines Matrix-Algebra Ansatzes entwickelt. Das Modellsystem wurde mittels Funktional- und Unsicherheitenanalyse parametrisiert, um in ganzheitlichen Bewertungsmodellen verwendet zu werden. In einer Fallstudie wurde der vorliegende Ansatz zur Abschätzung von Gesundheitsschäden und damit verbundener Kosten durch die fünf am meisten eingesetzten Pestizide in jeweils 25 europäischen Ländern im Jahr 2003 angewendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen hohe länderspezifische Unterschiede als Funktion von Einsatzmenge und Toxizität. Insgesamt belaufen sich die Schäden auf 1672 DALY ('disability-adjusted life years'), zu denen der die Nahrungspflanzen erreichende Pestizidanteil mit 97% beiträgt. Spanien mit 485, Italien mit 442 und Frankreich mit 370 DALY weisen die höchsten Schäden auf. Die Schadenskosten durch Pestizideinsatz in Europa im Jahr 2003 belaufen sich auf 67 Millionen Euro. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen, dass die Berücksichtigung von Rückständen in Pflanzen wichtig ist für die Abschätzung von Gesundheitsschäden als integralem Bestandteil zur Bewertung des Pestizideinsatzes in Europa.

To promote international collaboration on environmental pollution management and human health protection, we conducted a global-level study on the management of pesticides for surface freshwater quality. Prior to actions being taken in terms of water treatment or remediation, it is essential that clear and definite regulations be disseminated. In our study, 3094 surface freshwater quality standards for 184 different pesticides were recorded from 53 countries and categorized according to pesticide types and standard types, as well as diverse use of freshwater by humans, and compared water quality standards related to human health. Our results indicate large variations in pesticide regulations, standard types (i.e., long- or short-term water quality standards), and related numerical values. With regard to the protection of human health, the 10 most frequently regulated pesticides account for approximately 47% of the total number of standards across 184 considered pesticides. The average occurrence-weighted variations of standard values (i.e., numerical values provided in a standard in terms of residue limits of a given pesticide in water) for the 20 most regulated persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and other phase-out pesticides (i.e., pesticides not currently-approved for use in agriculture across various countries) are 4.1 and 2.6 orders of magnitude, respectively, with human-exposure related standard values for some pesticides varying with over 3 orders of magnitude (e.g., lindane). In addition, variations in water quality standard values occurred across standard types (e.g., maximum and average), water use types (e.g., unspecified waters and human consumption), and standard values (e.g., pesticide individuals and groups). We conclude that regulatory inconsistencies emphasize the need for international collaboration on domestic water treatment, environmental management as well as specific water quality standards for the wider range of current-use pesticides, thereby improving global harmonization in support ...

A wide range of chemical substances is used in consumer products for various purposes, including plastic softeners, dyestuffs and colorants, flame retardants, impregnation agents, antioxidants and UV absorbers, preservation agents and biocides, and many others. Among these chemicals, there is a certain fraction of substances with hazardous properties such as persistence, bioaccumulation potential and toxicity (PBT properties) or the ability to interfere with the hormonal system (endocrine disrupting chemicals, EDCs). Large-scale screening exercises have shown that there may be several hundreds of chemicals with PBT properties among the several tens of thousands of substances on the market. There are some groups of chemicals that have raised particular concerns such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) or long-chain poly and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs). These substances have been regulated or are subject to voluntary phase-out programs; specifically, penta- and octabrominated BDEs are scheduled for elimination globally under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; uses of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) are being restricted under the Stockholm Convention, and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and C 11 –C 14 perfluorocarboxylic acids are regulated in the European Union as PBT substances and vPvB (very persistent, very bioaccumulative) substances, respectively. In addition, all long-chain PFASs (substances with seven or more perfluorinated carbons) are subject of voluntary phase-out programs conducted by major producers of fluoropolymers and fluorotelomer-based products. However, it has become evident that the replacements of these substances include chemically similar substances, i.e. brominated aromatic substances in the case of PBDEs and shorter-chain PFASs in the case of long-chain PFASs. These are two examples of a substitution process that leads to an incremental rather than a fundamental change in the structure of chemicals used in consumer products. Here we discuss the conditions for incremental and fundamental changes in the substitution process of chemicals.

AbstractThe ubiquitous presence of more than 80,000 chemicals in thousands of consumer products used on a daily basis stresses the need for screening a broader set of chemicals than the traditional well‐studied suspect chemicals. This high‐throughput screening combines stochastic chemical‐product usage with mass balance‐based exposure models and toxicity data to prioritize risks associated with household products. We first characterize product usage using the stochastic SHEDS‐HT model and chemical content in common household products from the CPDat database, the chemical amounts applied daily varying over more than six orders of magnitude, from mg to kg. We then estimate multi‐pathways near‐ and far‐field exposures for 5,500 chemical‐product combinations, applying an extended USEtox model to calculate product intake fractions ranging from 0.001 to ∼1, and exposure doses varying over more than nine orders of magnitude. Combining exposure doses with chemical‐specific dose–responses and reference doses shows that risks can be substantial for multiple home maintenance products, such as paints or paint strippers, for some home‐applied pesticides, leave‐on personal care products, and cleaning products. Sixty percent of the chemical‐product combinations have hazard quotients exceeding 1, and 9% of the combinations have lifetime cancer risks exceeding 10−4. Population‐level impacts of household products ingredients can be substantial, representing 5 to 100 minutes of healthy life lost per day, with users' exposures up to 103 minutes per day. To address this issue, present mass balance‐based models are already able to provide exposure estimates for both users and populations. This screening study shows large variations of up to 10 orders of magnitude in impact across both chemicals and product combinations, demonstrating that prioritization based on hazard only is not acceptable, since it would neglect orders of magnitude variations in both product usage and exposure that need to be quantified. To address this, the USEtox suite of mass balance‐based models is already able to provide exposure estimates for thousands of product‐chemical combinations for both users and populations. The present study calls for more scrutiny of most impacting chemical‐product combinations, fully ensuring from a regulatory perspective consumer product safety for high‐end users and using protective measures for users.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) aims to compare environmental impacts of products and services on a functional basis. With life-cycle inventories established, LCA must provide in its Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) phase impact factors per kg of chemical emission/extracted resources, expressed in term of impacts on human health, ecosystem quality, or resources depletion. In this presentation, we track the development and evolution of LCIA methods over three decades and focus on the role of SETAC in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Program in forming the Life-Cycle Initiative to establish, interpret, and disseminate a globally harmonized LCIA approach. The Initiative has hosted a series of complementary efforts for LCIA consensus building, striving for recommendations and guidance on LCIA methods and factors. SETAC conferences and Pellston Workshops have provided important venues for the Initiative process. Three rounds of SETAC working groups have resulted in category-specific recommendations for developing LCIA impact indicators, taking advantage of broader consensus efforts, such as the World Health Organization, USEPA, and EU health risk assessment efforts. A combination of academic, government, and industry experts have participated in these efforts. As an informative example we will review the development and dissemination of the USEtox global scientific consensus model, which provides LCIA characterization factors for human toxicity and ecotoxicity, and which is now used worldwide. It is the default tool in both the European Union and North America. We conclude by considering future needs and opportunities for LCIA with a focus on the continuing role of SETAC.

It is commonly acknowledged that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from anthropogenic sources accelerate climate change impacts. Efforts are made by governments and companies to reduce GHG emissions via policies and actions. In order to determine which actions to prioritize among many options, benefits of emission reductions are often monetized, to compare with the costs of action or with benefits that can be obtained from other actions. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a commonly used tool to assess the amount of GHGs emitted over the life cycle of a service, policy or product system. However, the damage modelling of GHGs in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and its monetary values have not been separately evaluated. This hinders the application of LCA in relevant decision contexts. This study evaluates the cause-effect chains and associated monetary values of GHG in three LCIA methods LIME2, EPS2015 and ReCiPe2016. Among these three, EPS2015 covers most damage categories, including the ones on human health, ecosystem and social assets. ReCiPe2016 does not include social assets damages and LIME2 does not consider ecosystem damages in climate change impact. Human health damages are well estimated in all three methods, contributing to 70–97% of the GHG monetary values. The lack of data is a clear obstacle across methods. Further research is needed to develop comprehensive and robust modelling approach for ecosystem damages, which are not well covered in current LCIA methods. Moreover, due to the scope of environmental LCA, there is a lack of consideration on socio-economic consequences, which may not be negligible for climate change. The resulting monetary value of GHG, expressed in per tonne CO2-eq are 16, 160 and 140 US$2017 respectively in LIME2, EPS2015 and ReCiPe 2016. These monetary values are reasonable for use in decision contexts where LCA is applied. Further research is, however, needed to reduce the current uncertainty of at least 1–2 orders of magnitude.

European legislations create unique demands for the European exposure science community. Human and environmental exposure assessments for chemicals are required as part of the risk assessments undertaken in the context of various legislations. In addition, regulations on general product safety, classification, labelling and packaging, control of air quality and major-accident hazards require input on exposure. Moreover, security-driven exposure assessments are being increasingly requested related to the misuse of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials. Knowledge gaps, method and tool limitations, new needs together with longer-term EU strategies and several new trends all add additional challenges to the field of exposure science calling for the development of a European Strategy for Exposure Science. As a first step of strategy building, ISES Europe organized its first workshop in Germany aiming at (1) to design the backbone of The European Exposure Science Strategy with a roadmap 2020-2030; (2) to create working groups with their own goals and agenda in alignment with the overall strategy; (3) to identify actions for further research and policy needs in Europe; and (4) to attract new ISES Europe members. The workshop was structured around six thematic areas identified via two stakeholder surveys on needs for exposure science in Europe being 1. Data repositories and analytics, 2. Regulatory exposure assessment, 3. Exposure data production and monitoring, 4. Building partnerships and collaboration, 5. Exposure assessment methods and tools, and 6. Exposure science education and communication. In July 2019 ISES Europe organizes its second workshop to develop thematic action plans with roadmaps until 2030. The themes overarch the classical silos of occupational, consumer and environmental exposure and stimulates discussion and cooperation among ISES Europe members. This presentation will give an overview of the key thematic areas of ISES Europe and how ISES Europe intends to shape exposure science in Europe.

Non-paper Safe-by-design of materials and chemicals: Towards an innovation programme in Horizon Europe In the global transition to a safe and circular economy, the EU can play a leading role by developing innovative, safer and sustainable materials, chemicals, products and services. EU innovation policy, as a complement to chemicals policy, could stimulate the development and adoption of such innovations. An informal working group of experts from government, academia and industry has developed a non-paper about the main topics for an innovation programme, in Horizon Europe or other European programmes, that could accelerate the design, development and adoption of safer alternatives to new and existing applications (materials, chemicals, products and services) where safety hazards (may) arise. The document proposes three funding areas for a Horizon Europe programme: developing and improving methodologies for safe (re)design of chemicals and materials to ensure that toxicity and other lifecycle considerations (including circularity) are integrated into design processes; thematic Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) to overcome technical and scientific challenges in areas where it has been difficult to find safer alternatives; creating an enabling environment: Knowledge exchange, education and supply chain cooperation to set up safe-by-design as a new interdisciplinary approach. ; van der Waals J.F.M., Falk A., Fantke P., Filippousi P., Flipphi R.C.H., Mottet D., Trier X. (2019). Safe-by-design for materials and chemicals: Towards an innovation programme in Horizon Europe.

In the global transition to a safe and circular economy, the EU can play a leading role by developing innovative, safer and sustainable materials, chemicals, products and services. EU innovation policy, as a complement to chemicals policy, could stimulate the development and adoption of such innovations. An informal working group of experts from government, academia and industry has developed a non-paper about the main topics for an innovation programme, in Horizon Europe or other European programmes, that could accelerate the design, development and adoption of safer alternatives to new and existing applications (materials, chemicals, products and services) where safety hazards (may) arise. The document proposes three funding areas for a Horizon Europe programme: developing and improving methodologies for safe (re)design of chemicals and materials to ensure that toxicity and other lifecycle considerations (including circularity) are integrated into design processes; thematic Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) to overcome technical and scientific challenges in areas where it has been difficult to find safer alternatives; creating an enabling environment: Knowledge exchange, education and supply chain cooperation to set up safe-by-design as a new interdisciplinary approach.

Life cycle engineering (LCE) targets product development and manufacturing activities in a life cycle perspective, with the aim to create more sustainable solutions. Coined approximately 30 years ago, it was adopted by the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP, from the French title), which established annual conferences on life cycle engineering to further develop the concept and its operationalisation. With the recent advent of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), engineering is now provided with specific targets to steer societies towards sustainable production and consumption. But how can LCE contribute to meeting the UN SDGs? Here, we report on a consultation process conducted as part of the 25th CIRP LCE conference, organised in Copenhagen, DK, in 2018. Approximately 175 participants reflected on a list of ten pre-identified challenges for implementing the SDG agenda that LCE could help tackle, and were solicited to propose solutions. A total of 118 solutions were proposed, and the main messages and recommendations are summarised and reported in the paper. Overall, they voice the need for stronger action from academia (e.g. research needs related to addressing trade-offs across SDGs), business and governments (e.g. transparent and harmonised reporting on sustainability performances, internalisation of external costs) and society at large (e.g. consumer behaviour, role of education).

AbstractDecisions about the development of new marketed technologies or products invariably come with consequences for economy, society and the environment. Environmental and health risk assessment on the one hand and sustainability assessment on the other hand are tools that offer different but complementary information about such consequences. Conflicts or synergies between the two tools may arise when there are trade-offs between considerations of specific risks and safety versus long-term sustainability. There is a compelling case for a combined assessment of both sustainability and risks, also in support of a successful safe and sustainable-by-design (SSbD) approach, but this is not straightforward. We offer a roadmap showing when the two assessment tools should be applied together and how to combine them in a consistent way, to support more robust decision-making. Four alternative approaches are evaluated against six performance criteria to recommend an approach that makes use of the broader and more generic sustainability assessment as a baseline and includes iterative applications of risk and sustainability assessment elements to increase specificity, reliability and relevance of the assessment results. The recommended approach provides a basis for better-informed decisions about technology choices for policy and societal stakeholders.

In the last two decades, sustainable and safe use of chemicals became a focal point of various international policy efforts and has been addressed through launching of chemical management systems worldwide. In the EU, the regulation on Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) primarily concentrates on generating substance intrinsic properties data (including hazard) depending on the tonnage being registered. However, using the chemical production/import volume alone as a proxy/indicator of true exposures undermines risk management decision making and deprives exposure information of its real power (e.g. smart studies design, more efficient prioritization). The European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals (ECETOC) together with the European Chemical Industry Council Long Range Initiative program streamline their research efforts towards gaining wider regulatory acceptance of exposure-informed testing and risk management practices. This presentation provides an overview of recent industry-funded research building a knowledgebase on tools and methods for assessment of low exposure. The problem definition of low exposure in various contexts will be discussed, focusing on aspects/factors that make low exposure very important in certain situations. A detailed outline will be provided for multiple projects that consider low exposure from different perspectives. The examples will cover comparative exposure analysis of alternative exposure sources to the same substance, assessment of intentional and non-intentional exposure, exposure based waiving and workplace risk assessment. The presented material should inform the workshop participants about the ECETOC's perspective on the importance/weight of (low) exposure in regulatory risk assessment and set the stage for a follow-up panel discussion to help identify remaining knowledge gaps and future focus areas.