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Screening of Emerging Chemicals in the Coastal Environment in Japan:Its Directions and Methodologies

Publication year

Port and Airport Research Institute　Technical Note　 1203　2009.09

Author(s)

Susumu KONUMA,Ayako OGAWA,Shigeki MASUNAGA,Yoshiyuki NAKAMURA

Department
/Divison

Marine Environment and Engineering Department Environment Information Group

Executive Summary

The environment in Japan has been drastically improved in the last several decades, however, the coastal environment still seems to have many problems: biodiversity degradation, unsustainable bioproductivity, and so on. These phenomena might have some links with emerging chemicals of concern, adverse effects for the environment from which are still unknown. The screening to seek for the emerging chemicals is thought to be needed to find the key chemicals which derive ecological risks for the coastal environment.
　Type I Monitoring Chemical Substances (October 1, 2008) in the Act on the Evaluation of Chemical Substances and Regulation of Their Manufacture, etc (Act No. 117 of October 16, 1973) were selected as candidates of the emerging chemicals for the preliminary screening. The screening processes were performed using data set of the production and import volumes, the characteristics of the usage, the real and estimated toxicity and BCF data, the persistence in activated sludge and the estimated distribution ratio in sediment. The estimations were performed by the PBT Profiler by the U.S.EPA and the Syracuse Research Corp. (http://www.pbtprofiler.net/). Several chemicals were obtained as the final candidates of emerging chemicals; including a UV filter, a brominated flame retardant, a solvent for carbon paper and a vulcanizing agent. The past risk assessments and managements for each chemical were reviewed. The limitations and futures of these screening processes were discussed.

PDF File

/en/pdf/en/no1203.pdf