Strengthening Chemicals Management in Brazil

In late October 2018, the National Chemical Safety Commission of Brazil (Conasq) released the industry's long-awaited preliminary bill for the Inventory, Evaluation, and Control of Chemical Substances (Preliminary Bill for the Inventory, Evaluation, and Control of Chemical Substances). The Act provides for the establishment of Brazil's existing list of chemicals, the registration, assessment and control of new chemicals. It is an important basis for Brazil's chemical management and a milestone for the establishment and improvement of Brazil's chemical management system. The proposal may be approved this month. As a step towards joining the OECD, the Brazilian government is considering a thorough reform of its chemical regulations. Denise Hamu, the United Nations environmental representative, said the Brazilian Ministry of Environment had been working on the regulation of industrial chemicals since 2012. In recent years, the Brazilian Ministry of Environment has made progress in meeting the expectations of the international community for environmental protection. The main objective of the Act is to establish regulations for the registration, assessment and monitoring of chemicals and to impose sanctions on the enforcement of irregularities and responsible agencies. Ham said that although the Act establishes roles and responsibilities for the chemical industry and government, in order to implement the Act in Brazil and achieve good chemicals management, institutional management capacity must be strengthened. The act provides for the classification procedures of hazardous substances to health and the environment, and puts forward the management measures. The measure also calls for the establishment of a national list of chemicals that will list suppliers, material identities, recommended uses and the range of hazardous substances and mixtures, namely GHS (Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals). However, the Act does not include substances such as pesticides, cosmetics, drugs and fertilizers. Industry insiders said that if the bill became law, regulatory opinions would certainly be different. Some companies may think that the regulations are overmanaged, while others may think that the regulations are insufficient. James Agnes Schweiler, head of Global trade at Redstone Group, a U.S. -based consultancy, said: "Many people still want a relatively free market and don't like artificial barriers. However, as the new regulations may affect foreign competitors, localized chemical manufacturers may welcome them. Native application companies that need to purchase chemicals from foreign competitors may not like the regulation, of course.

Some people have compared the proposed regulation with the EU REACH regulation (registration, assessment, authorization and restriction of chemicals), but there are differences between them. Eugene Schweiler said that the EU's REACH regulations require all chemicals to be registered with fairly reliable data, and all chemicals with annual production or imports exceeding 1 ton need to be registered. Brazil's proposed legislation focuses on the assessment of large amounts of data on new and existing substances. The Brazilian Chemical Industry Association (Abiquim) said that the proposed law should be similar to the Canadian Chemicals Management Programme (CMP), with the main purpose of risk management. At present, some South American countries, including Brazil, are seeking to join the OECD and have formally applied for membership last year. OECD requires member countries to comply with specific policies on chemicals management. This has enabled Brazil to start strengthening chemicals management. Brazil has signed several international agreements on this issue and is working closely with Argentina.