Developing a screening method for the evaluation of environmental and human health risks of synthetic chemicals in the mining industry

There is increasing scientific and public concern about the use of synthetic chemicals which may enter the environment especially if they pose a risk to human health. Recent chemical legislation, requires industry to assess the hazards and risks of all chemical substances used in their operations, with increasing financial and legal implications. Chemicals are used intensively in chemical processing industries, agriculture and cleaning, and less intensively, in engineering, welding and woodwork.The mining industry relies heavily on the use of chemicals in most of its operations and it is now required to comply with specific chemical legislation, such as the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals) regulation, introduced by the European Union in 2007. Here we consider the state of the art of understanding the hazards and risks to human health and the environment associated with the use of synthetic chemicals as a basis for developing a risk assessment procedure for the mining industry. Several screening and risk assessment procedures, some used by chemical process industries are evaluated to determine their appropriateness for focusing on hazard identification and exposure estimation. Most of the procedures considered are for single substance assessments, or specific exposure scenarios, and these are used to develop a new framework for risk assessment for synthetic chemicals used in the mining industry, for which the following factors are important: i) the selection of hazardous property categories; ii) the method for scoring hazardous properties of the chemicals considered; iii) the assessment of data quality; iv) the identification of data gaps; and v) the reduction in the number of chemicals that need to be screened. It is important that the method developed must combine aspects of several of the available procedures if the needs of the mining industry in terms of accommodating the range of volumes, exposure scenarios, different uses, unknown mixtures, range of disposal routes and disparities in chemical housekeeping, are to be met. The final system developed, requires a systematic approach to identify which chemicals and ingredients in product formulations are on priority lists, or are likely to be so in the future, as a result of their hazardous or physicochemical properties. Moreover, the system developed must screen situations in which the chemicals are used, in order to determine the most high risk scenarios, so that appropriate measures to prevent and reduce accidents can be taken.

► The mining industry relies heavily on chemicals, and must comply with REACH.
► Chemical screening procedures evaluated for appropriateness to the mining industry.
► High risk scenarios to be determined for chemical prioritisation and management.
► Method developed to ensure financial and legal security for the mining industry.