Comparative risk profiling of substances
Saturday, December 20th, 2008 - First thought
Industry will use less dangerous substances for its products if a P2P internet database provides comparative information on functionalities and risks.
Comparative risk profiling of substances
Imagine you are a responsible manufacturer of lemonade, of toys or of shampoo. You would like to use the less harmful appropriate sweetener, the less harmful plasticiser, the less harmful conserving substance. You screen the many databases listed by Toxnet, but none of them answers your question. The current legislative systems dealing with chemical substances are not of much help either. They just distinguish between forbidden and allowed and do not give a comparative picture. Accordingly, a responsible manufacturer cannot easily minimise the risk of doing harm to his consumers or to the environment.
From the first scientific articles about the potential danger of a substance to the coming into force and application of a legislative ban, the process takes easily five to ten years. In the meantime the dangerous substances get into contact with consumers and the environment and can thus cause damages. Giving responsible manufacturers the possibility to avoid substances which become candidates for a ban reduce these damages and bridges the gap between the first scientific articles about the potential danger and the application of the legislative ban.
Comparative risk profiling of substances reduces worldwide the risk of health and environmental damages caused by chemical substances used for any industrial application. It does so by allowing responsible manufacturers to choose, for any product type and required functionality, the substance which is most likely to cause no harm. It creates a benchmark for good industrial production so that all manufacturers will, at the end of the day, have to select the substances which are most likely to be harmless.
First steps could be:
- The creation of an open source database listing substances, functions (sweetening, conserving, plasticising, etc.), product types which allows a comparison of different substances having the same function for a certain product type.
- A worldwide information campaign calling voluntary contributions to the database,
- Another worldwide information campaign inviting manufacturers to use the database in order to decrease the risk for environment, consumers and their work force.
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