RegAlerts for Managers - 2021 JUNE

RegAlerts

A bimonthly/quarterly list of a few regulatory issues that may affect PCA members

NANOPARTICLES

Canada is proposing to regulate products containing more than 1% nanoparticles by weight – simplistically any particle with any dimension less than 100 nm. PCA concerns are tackifier dispersions and resin dust. We already know that one member’s dispersion product exceeds this limit. All dispersion manufacturers are advised to measure the particle distribution of their dispersions and let me know if there are concerns with this regulation while we still have time to influence the Canadian government. For the same reason measuring the particle sizes of your resin dust is advised.

CALIFORNIA AIR RESTRICTIONS

California will be tightening its air emissions from many consumer sources including the fragrance component. There is currently a Fragrance Exemption of 2% as long as the monoterpene content is less than 25% of this. PCA and several organizations were successful in defining monoterpenes as pinenes of limonene. This takes some of the pressure off pine fragrances because pine oil contains little of these two monoterpenes. A small win because the Fragrance Exemption itself will be phased out by 2031.

NEW APPROACH METHODOLOGIES (NAMs)

To comply with the restrictions on the use of animals for testing chemicals, regulators in USA, Canada, and Europe are vigorously pursuing the use of NAMs. These use the response of cell components to chemicals, and combine this with computer-driven techniques (e.g. QSARs) to predict the effect of a chemical on animals and humans. So far, the efforts are at an early stage and they are not yet able to predict the toxicities of mixtures (e.g. UVCBs which encompass most of PCA products)  but this is coming. It will revolutionize risk assessment, so it is important that PCA keep well abreast of the research.

For further information and comments, e-mail Nelson Lawson at nelson@pinechemicals.org