General environmental risks

Toluene and o-anisidine would also require target-setting to reduce general environmental risks, but restrictions would need to be applied for controlling direct risks from consumer products. 

Concerning environmental protection, in general, the risk of adverse environmental effects is lower with organic than with conventional farming methods,... 

This book is aimed at generalizing the modem ideas of both biogeochemical and environmental risk assessment during recent years. Only a few books are available for... 

Risk characterization based on comparing either predicted or measured environmental concentrations with effects data for the most sensitive organisms (PEC/ PNEC or MEC/PNEC, respectively). An environmental risk is considered unacceptable if the ratio equals or exceeds 1. In general, this phase considers the worst-case scenario. 

Interactive exchange of information about (health or environmental) risks among risk assessors, managers, news media, interested groups, and the general public. 

The first draft of the risk assessment reports are written by the Member States, which act as rapporteurs . Generally, one Member State acts as rapporteur for a prioritized substance or group of substances however, for some prioritized substances, more than one Member State can act as rapporteurs. The risk assessment process is coordinated by the ECB. Stakeholders are involved in the process through the Technical Committee for New and Existing Substances (TC NES). The Commission mediates the meetings, which attempt to reach consensus on the conclusions of the risk assessments. During the risk assessment process, the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) is requested to provide an opinion. 

Guidance to date supports the risk assessment principles for general chemical substances already published by the Commission (1996). Consequently, the risk characterisation simply involves a quantitative comparison of the outcome of the hazard/effects assessment with the exposure assessment. For human risk this involves the calculation of the TER (Toxicity Exposure Ratio) and comparing it with the MOS (Margin Of Safety). For environmental risk the PEC/PNEC ratio (Predicted Environmental Concentration versus the Predicted No-Effect Concentration) for the various environmental compartments. 

The last 50 years have seen the introduction of many new chemicals. Many have stood the test of time and shown their benefits to outweigh their environmental risks. For some, however, important adverse environmental effects emerged. The search to replace those without further environmental effects has become a strong driving force in industry, in the scientific community, and in the general public. 

Under certain conditions, individuals can share the costs of those residual risks through insurance contracts. In this chapter, 1 describe the conditions in which people will agree to share risks and what strategies ameliorate insurance market failures when those conditions do not exist. Generally, environmental insurance markets face many problems and have nof worked well. 

There are a number of strategies that can be employed to assess the collective environmental risk associated with a process. A number of general areas should be considered as part of the overall assessment, independently of whatever strategy is chosen, such as consideration of... 

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