PROGRAMME

One major challenge in today’s generic risk assessment is, that only a small fraction of the marketed chemicals has been sufficiently evaluated regarding their (eco)toxicological properties or exposure scenarios, while limited data are available for the majority of substances. For instance, many of the > 22,000 compounds registered under REACH either lack data due to poor quality of registration dossiers or data are not sufficient for a final assessment, e.g. of PBT properties. Since not all substances can be manually screened for hazardous properties, automated and effective tools for prioritization are needed. One option is to make better use of high-quality chemical monitoring data. The LIFE APEX project aims to demonstrate how monitoring data from apex predators and their prey can be effectively used to improve prioritization of chemicals for further hazard assessment, particularly of PBT substances under REACH and the Biocidal Products Regulation. Here, we present tools and criteria for prioritization such as detection rates, hazardous properties, exposure, and physical-chemical properties to allow for a fast and reliable risk assessment. The overall aim is to provide a priority list of top scored chemicals to European chemicals authorities to point out the need for further regulation.