Persistent, Mobile and Toxic Chemicals

As this category does not yet exist as a specific REACH category, these substances so far belong under the category Equivalent Level of Concern (ELoC).

The assessments were performed by Professor Martin Scheringer and Dr Helena Andrade from ETH Zurich during 2019.

The assessment process started with a list of in total 344 chemicals compiled by UBA and the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. This list was reduced after screening using EPI Suite Estimations and by removing non-REACH relevant chemicals or chemicals already on the SIN List. Some chemicals were also manually added as being specifically interesting, and the total number of evaluated chemicals was 24.

After this selection was finished, several aspects were considered in the evaluation of the 24 chemicals:

  • Existing regulation or classification under REACH and CLP or as Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP) under the Stockholm Convention (regarding the P and T dimensions.
  • Results from the screening study by (Arp and Hale, 2019): chemicals that have PMT properties according to the data generated were given high priority. From the 24 chemicals we selected, this study classified one as PM, six as PMT, nine as vPvM, and eight as vPvMT.
  • In parallel, a technical note by this same group, Arp et al., has been adopted by the NORMAN network as the NORMAN Potential PMT substances list (Arp, 2018). From our final selection of 24 chemicals, 16 were present in this list.
  • Production volume: among the chemicals that have PMT properties, higher priority was given to high-production-volume chemicals (HPVCs) or chemicals that are registered under REACH in larger tonnage bands.
  • The criteria for mobility was the same as proposed by the German Environment Agency (UBA) in its criteria version from 2019, which was also presented at the CARACAL meeting.

For the chemicals investigated, individual summarised fact sheets were prepared. The assessment criteria were summarised and property estimation methods and databases used were provided as information sources. For each chemical, an extensive search in publicly accessible databases was performed as well. Basic information on the chemical, its applications, and expected PMT behaviour was also summarised.

A table showing property data (value, estimated or experimental, data source) was provided along with additional information, for example on the detection of the chemical in the environment.

Chemicals were, after discussions with experts from member states, included in the SIN List if they:

  • Fulfilled the Annex XIII criteria of REACH, ECHA for PMT/vPvM substances;
  • Showed substantial structural similarity to chemicals that are already regulated as P/vP and/or T under REACH or the Stockholm Convention on POPs;
  • Degraded in the environment or organisms into substances that fulfil 1.