Industrial chemical regulation inventory

In Japan there is no specific regulation for biocides, and new substances are regulated under the Industrial Chemical Control Law (ICCL). The scheme is based on an inventory for existing substances and notification for new substances. The fact that three different agencies are involved slows down the approval system considerably (28). 

Manufacture and use of chemicals is nowadays tightly regulated around the globe and not limited to the industrialized countries. Prior to marketing every producer or importer has to comply with a general chemical regulation that asks either for a notification of new substances and/or products or compliance with existing chemicals inventories, e.g., in EU [8], the USA [9], Japan [10], Canada [11], Australia... 

The purpose of this chapter is to summarize and generalize the various pollution, health, and environmental problems especially specific to the chemical industry and to place in perspective government laws and regulations as well as industry efforts to control these problems. A brief survey of air and water pollution problems will be given, but these are characteristic of all industry and the topics are too vast to be covered adequately in this book. We will be more concerned with toxic chemical pollution and its control and will spend some time on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA, TOSCA) of 1976 and the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) list begun in 1988. 

Existing chemicals are those that were on the EU market before 18 September 1981 and listed in EINECS (the European Inventory of Existing Commercial Substances). The Regulation requires industry to report data on existing substances, the Commission to prioritise substances for risk assessment and Member States to conduct risk assessments of those priority substances. Will be replaced by REACH. 

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