Australian Government Publishes Chemical Evaluations Roadmap And Rolling Action Plan

The Australian government recently published an evaluation roadmap and rolling action plan outlining their approach for evaluating industrial chemicals’ introduction. The rolling action plan is Australia’s work plan for prioritising chemicals for evaluation, depending on the outcome of the Evaluation Selection Analysis (ESA) process. They are all aimed at ensuring the protection of Australians and the environment.

By 2024, the government aims to evaluate at least 20% of the inventory chemicals. However, there is currently no risk assessment. These chemicals include inactive chemicals, higher concern chemicals, and the ones unlikely to need further regulation for risk management. And by 2030, they aim to have evaluated the remaining unassessed higher concern industrial chemicals.

Australia wants to ensure that there is readily available information and recommendations for managing potential risks associated with chemicals’ use, even before they are brought into the country. Therefore, the regulators will:

1. Identify and prioritise chemicals for evaluation.
2. Produce efficient, transparent, and targeted evaluations and recommendations to risk managers.
3. Provide high-quality information and risk management advice to achieve safe use of chemicals.

The Rolling Action Plan will be strategically used to prioritise chemicals for evaluation. With the plan, there will be a listing of evaluations in progress, the ones currently open for public consultation and the recently completed evaluations, all on the AICIS website. The evaluation could be either for a single chemical or a group of chemicals, and it includes the following:

• subject of the evaluation (the chemical name or chemical group name)
• reason for the evaluation
• time it takes to do the evaluation
• focus of the evaluation (chemical identity, and human health or the environment, or both)
• current status of the evaluation (for example, in progress, public consultation, completed) and
• amendment to the regulator’s list of evaluation candidates.

Finally, the targets and plans will be reviewed regularly and stakeholders, government agencies, industry and the public will continue to have a say on the evaluations’ outcome.

Last Update: 2021-11-01