Governments and the chemical industry spend millions of dollars every year testing the safety of chemicals that people use in their everyday lives. Computer modelling, through the OECD-designed QSAR Toolbox software, now replaces many of the tests traditionally done in the laboratory. This allows regulators and industry to save money and use fewer animals to predict the hazardous properties of chemicals.

The aquatic life benchmarks (for freshwater species) are based on toxicity values reviewed by EPA and used in the Agency's most recent risk assessments developed as part of the decision-making process for pesticide registration. Each Aquatic Life Benchmark is based on the most sensitive, scientifically acceptable toxicity endpoint available for a given taxon of all scientifically acceptable toxicity data available to EPA.

The OECD Environmental Risk Assessment Toolkit describes the work flow for environmental risk assessment and management of chemicals with links to available OECD material relevant for the different steps in risk assessment and management. This new version of the Toolkit is more interactive and has added functionalities. It will be populated with additional tools and case studies in the future.

This document presents the outcomes of the 3rd OECD Biopesticide Seminar, held in 2011, that focused on the topic of “botanicals” (also known as plant extracts). The Seminar reviewed a number of scientific and regulatory issues related to the “characterisation and analyses of botanicals for the use in plant protection products”.

This document includes a table which summarises descriptions of existing models and tools used for exposure assessment, as well as responses to a 2010 survey – conducted by the OECD Task Force on Exposure Assessment - upon which the table was based. The summary table and the responses are also available in the OECD Environmental Risk Assessment Toolkit (http://envriskassessmenttoolkit.oecd.org/).

This document outlines the current status of and available guidance documents/tools on the application, use and presentation of PRTR data in OECD member countries and the Commission for Environmental Co-operation based on the results of a survey conducted in November 2011.

This document outlines basic background information on release estimation techniques (RETs) for point sources and provides resources on available RETs of different national/regional Pollutant Release and Transfer Register systems. It was originally published in 2002, and has been updated to reflect new and additional information.

US Environmental Protection Agency derived the Human health benchmarks for pesticides by applying the health effects data from pesticide registrations to the typical methods used for developing drinking water health advisories. It was developed to enable states, water systems and the public to better determine whether the detection of a pesticide in drinking water or source waters for drinking water may indicate a potential health risk.

This document provides guidance on conducting laboratory tests to determine and assess the efficacy of test substances and/or the effectiveness of test products used as baits for the control of cockroach species in indoor environments.

30/01/2013 –The first update to the third generation of the QSAR Toolbox (version 3.1) has now been released containing improved search functionalities, interface improvement, a new database for observed rat in vivo metabolism; updated auto oxidation and metabolism simulators; updated DNA binding profiler and additional ways of expressing mixtures composition.

This Biosafety Document is intended to supply basic information (biology mainly), useful in environmental risk/safety assessment. Agriculture plant species of Brassica genus are cropped worldwide as oilseeds, vegetables and for other uses.

This revised document supplies basic information (compositional considerations, key constituents), useful in risk/safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of soybean (Glycine max.). This updated publication replaces the original issue of 2001.

This is a guidance on sample preparation and dosimetry, to which special attention should be paid when testing nanomaterials for human health and environmental safety endpoints.

This is the report of the workshop on Natural-hazard triggered technological accidents (Natech) that took place 23-25 May 2012. It investigated the specific elements of the prevention of, preparedness for, and response to chemical accidents caused by natural hazard or natural disaster.

This document provides information on current/planned activities related to the safety of manufactured nanomaterials in OECD member and non-member countries that attended at the 10th meeting of OECD’s Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (Paris France, 27-29 June 2012).

This document compares sectors of industrial activities and their reporting thresholds among different national / regional PRTRs to improve the comparability of PRTR data, and proposes a harmonised list of sectors.

Malaysia has joined the OECD system for the Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD) in the Assessment of Chemicals, ensuring that its non-clinical safety data related to the protection of human health and the environment will be accepted by all 40 countries adhering to MAD.

This document provides guidance for performing an exposure assessment based on environmental monitoring data.It covers topics such as environmental levels and distribution of contaminants, ways of using monitoring data in exposure assessments for differing purposes, the collection of data, quality of monitoring activities, as well as several examples of data compilation in member countries and their use in exposure assessment.

This is an analysis of a 2010 survey regarding carbon capture and long-term storage (CCS). It provides information that helps understand the hazards of CO2 sequestration and the risks to human health and environmental safety. It also identifies accident scenarios, including those associated with CO2 capture and compression, storage prior to transport and injection for geological storage.

This guidance document intends to provide an insight into which pieces of information that are necessary to identify and document an adverse outcome pathway (AOP) and how to present them. The AOP concept has been developed as a means of providing transparent mechanistic justification and weight-of-evidence to reduce uncertainty in the predictions for complex toxicological endpoints.

11/07/2013 –Recently the OECD released the third generation of the QSAR Toolbox. For this purpose, the guidance document for grouping chemicals to fill data gaps for genetic toxicity and genotoxic carcinogenicity have been updated. This guidance document should support the user of the QSAR Toolbox to build categories that are mechanistically and structurally robust.

11/07/2013 –Recently the OECD released the third generation of the QSAR Toolbox. For this purpose, the guidance document for grouping chemicals to fill data gaps for acute aquatic toxicity have been updated. This guidance document should support the user of the QSAR Toolbox to build categories that are mechanistically and structurally robust.

This biocide document provides guidance on the conduct of laboratory and field tests aimed to assess the efficacy of anti-ants baits for indoor use. A bait contains one or more insecticidal active ingredients combined with food for garden ants.

Four new tutorials are available that provide illustrated examples for the use of the functionalities of the Query tool , the AOP workflow for Skin Sensitization, the information form the ECHA CHEM database and the capability to analyse tautomeric structures. The examples cover both human health (skin sensitisation) and environmental (acute aquatic toxicity to fish) endpoints.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) database of completed chemical reviews including (in some cases) detailed risk assessment reports addressing human health and the environment. A review, initiated from new concerns, may lead to the reconsideration of the registration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals in the marketplace if potential risks to safety and performance have been identified.

This document follows on from a report entitled Important Issues on Risk Assessment of Manufactured Nanomaterials [ENV/JM/MONO(2012)8]. This report identified a range of issues which the WPMN considered important in risk assessment and which should be addressed in the future. It summarised results of a survey which was circulated to delegations of the WPMN, methodologies used to analyze the survey, and the identified priorities.

The Gefahrstoffdatenbank der Länder, a german database, is now linked to eChemPortal. 102545 substance records can be searched through the substance search. This includes German hazardous substances legislation as well as other sources reflecting the state of technology and occupational health and safety relating to activities involving hazardous substances. In addition, it contains links to various other German data bases.

This Biosafety document aims to serve as an aid to risk assessors and regulators; providing guidance on handling the aspects of an environmental safety assessment, accessing and using information in situations of low-level presence (LLP) of transgenic plants in seed and grain commodities.

The OECD has recommended its Member Countries apply existing international and national chemical regulatory frameworks to manage the risks associated with manufactured nanomaterials.

The OECD has published a revision of the 2003 Emission Scenario Document on Wood Preservatives to take into account the experience gained in working with the 2003 ESD. The document has been totally restructured, emission scenarios have been updated and new, niche scenarios have been added. The document is an essential tool for Member countries working in the area of biocidal products assessment.

The OECD is to review its chemical hazard assessment programme with the aim of providing a more specialised service for member countries from 2015.

This document supplies basic information useful in the risk and safety assessment of food and feed using new varieties of oyster mushroom: compositional considerations, key constituents (nutrients, anti-nutrients and toxicants). It is issued in the Novel Food and Feed Safety Series.

This new document is available as a tool for environmental safety assessment of new varieties of sugarcane derived from modern biotechnology. Given the large production of this crop worldwide, its biosafety will be an important issue for many countries.

This Bio-pesticides seminar report presents an overview of similarities and differences between species and strains within the Trichoderma genus. This fungus illustrates many general issues related to the use of micro-organisms for pest management.

eChemPortal uses are encouraged to respond to the on-line survey. Your use of the portal, your expectations, information, substance search, property search, structure search, design and layout. Your answers will help us improve eChemPortal - the Global Portal to Information on Chemical Substances, worldwide source of information about chemicals from authorities and international organisations, to meet your needs.

This document includes the conclusions and recommendations resulting from a workshop that addressed the ecotoxicology and environmental fate of manufactured nanomaterials, and in particular the applicability of existing OECD Test Guidelines (TG) related to these topics. A number of TG developments are underway at OECD as a follow-up to these recommendations.

This report describes an OECD seminar that brought together regulatory authorities, industry representatives and other stakeholders to discuss how to measure the uptake, adoption and implementation, as well as the impact, of Integrated Pest Management. Integrated Pest Management, a term used to describe strategies that promote the safer and more sustainable use of pesticides, is high on the agenda in many regions of the world.

Safeguarding people’s health and the environment through responsible marketing and use of pesticides in agriculture relies on regulation, and compliance with this regulation. OECD have launched an online resource to help regulators in different countries share their experiences and best practice and to act as a portal for information on pesticide compliance and enforcement.

This document provides information on the sources, use patterns, and potential release pathways of chemicals used in the manufacture of thermal and carbonless copy paper. It presents approaches for estimating the environmental releases of and occupational exposures to additives and components used in thermal and carbonless copy paper coatings.

The OECD has published a guidance for characterising oleochemical substances. The method presented gives guidance on how these complex substances can be characterised in a way that their composition is accurately and consistently reflected to ensure that substances with the same chemical composition, manufactured in different countries, can be characterised with the same description for hazard assessment purposes.

The OECD has published the second edition of the guidance on grouping of chemicals. This edition has been augmented with experience and examples encountered in the OECD Cooperative Chemicals Assessment Programme. It also introduces new or revised guidance on elaborating the analogue and category approach, quantitative and qualitative read-across, justifying read-across, and using bioprofiling results for grouping chemicals.

This website gives information about the regulatory approaches adopted by OECD member countries to mitigate pesticide risks to insect pollinators. Following a survey of OECD member countries, it was concluded that mitigation of risks to insect pollinators is important to all its member countries, and that mitigation is a critical component of balancing the benefits of plant protection products with potential risks to insect pollinators.

A report of the 2013 joint OECD/Swedish Chemicals Agency/European Commission workshop on the assessment and management of risks of microbial pesticides that resulted in 20 recommendations for approaches that could be taken now and areas for follow-up work to be undertaken by OECD or Member countries.

The webinar will specifically be looking at recent developments in alternatives to long chain PFCs. Per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) have been in use since the 1950s as ingredients or intermediates of surfactants and surface protectors for assorted industrial and consumer applications.

This document compiles information on the current methodologies, tools and models and helps readers identify appropriate models/ and methodologies for estimating substance-specific removal/emissions from wastewater treatment systems. It could support efforts to improve these models and tools.

The first version of the Globally Harmonised Submission and Transport Standard was published May 2014. The GHSTS is a standardised set of technical specifications used to assemble electronic files for any pesticide package in a predefined manner. Once the files are assembled according to the specifications, they can be transferred from a business entity to a regulatory authority and can be extracted for use in a regulatory process.

This document is a tool for environmental safety assessment of novel varieties of Cassava derived from modern biotechnology. Cassava is a key staple crop in Africa, Asia and Latin America, this document will be useful to many readers interested in biosafety issues.

OECD major events and activities relating to biotechnologies: latest developments are updated biannually in this Newsletter

This OECD monograph demonstrates how a chemical hazard assessment that considers and ranks all available relevant information - a so-called weight of evidence approach - can be constructed to conclude on a particular hazard endpoint for a chemical, in this case, skin sensitisation for 4-isopropylaniline.

This report includes the conclusions and recommendation of an expert workshop on Physical-Chemical Properties of Manufactured Nanomaterials and Test Guidelines organized by OECD’s Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials. The workshop addressed issues relevant to the physical-chemical properties of manufactured nanomaterials from a regulatory perspective point with a view to the need for new or adapted test guidelines.