Resources Summary
Clean Production Action Commentary on Danish EPA “Environmental and Health Screening Profiles of Phosphorous Flame Retardants” (Environmental Project No. 1823, 2016)”
As part of its work to evaluate alternatives to halogenated flame retardants, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released a report providing environmental and health screening profiles for 28 phosphorus flame retardants using GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals (GreenScreen) as the underlying framework for hazard assessment. GreenScreen is one of three Clean Production Action programs to promote safer alternatives to toxic chemicals in products and supply chains. The stated goals of the Danish EPA project included evaluating GreenScreen’s alignment with principles and criteria in the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) regulations, and the Danish EPA’s requirements for chemical hazard assessment in relation to consumer products. The work was sponsored by the Danish EPA and conducted by the consultancy, COWI A/S. The Danish EPA and COWI A/S emphasized that GreenScreen is an internationally-oriented hazard assessment approach, leveraging and building upon precedents established under REACH, Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), and CLP. The report also highlighted GreenScreen’s alignment with Danish EPA and European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) hazard identification approaches. While the authors concluded GreenScreen is a relevant framework for hazard assessment in Europe, they recommended and implemented what they termed “relatively minor” adaptions to the GreenScreen method as part of the hazard profiling process for the 28 flame retardants included in their study. Due to the method modifications undertaken in the Danish EPA project, hazard assessment results for the 28 flame retardants published by the Danish EPA are not comparable to existing GreenScreen BenchmarkTM scores or Hazard Summary Tables published following the GreenScreen method. As stated in the Danish EPA report, the COWI A/S evaluation of 23 of the 28 flame retardant substances only incorporated data included in prior assessments of these substances conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Design for Environmental (US EPA DfE) program.1 Clean Production Action is issuing this commentary to highlight and clarify the key differences between the Danish EPA hazard profiling approach and the GreenScreen methodology. For detailed information regarding the GreenScreen method, access the Guidance and Resources. For more information on the Danish EPA hazard profiling approach, refer to the agency’s full report.