TRA Tool version 3 – public workshop

3rd May 2012

Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel

Brussels, Belgium

The new TRA version 3 was launched in early April together with updated user guides to reflect the changes. In order to explain TRAv3 and update users on the difference between TRAv2 and TRAv3, ECETOC held a workshop on 3rd May 2012 at the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel.

Background

REACH is the regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. It entered into force on 1st June 2007. It streamlines and improves the former legislative framework on chemicals of the European Union. One of the key challenges of REACH is that it envisages the registration and evaluation of approximately 30,000 chemicals by producers and importers. Many of these chemicals will be classified and will require Chemical Safety Assessments to support their registration. Faced with such a challenge, both practically and scientifically, suitable tools that are accessible to non-experts are a key need of the REACH process.

To achieve these aims, ECETOC has developed a tiered (step by step) approach for calculating the exposure to and risks from chemicals that might reasonably be expected in defined circumstances of use. The approach addresses exposure to consumers, workers and the environment. The general concept of ECETOC's targeted risk assessment (TRA) is based on the premise that, by making suitably conservative assumptions, broad exposure/risk models can be applied to determine where any further detailed assessment of risks may be required.

Since its launch in 2004, the ECETOC Targeted Risk Assessment Tool has proved to be an overwhelming success. Since the release of the TRA version 2 in July 2009, over 11,000 downloads of the tools have been made and many of the major consortia placed the TRA at the heart of their 2010 REACH Registrations.

Following the 2010 registrations, the core group of the ECETOC Targeted Risk Assessment task force has been seeking feedback from users of the tool in order to identify areas where the tools‘ functionality and accuracy might be further improved. At the same time, ECHA signalled its intent to update its Chesar CSA/ES tool. In this respect, updates to the worker and consumer tools have been developed in close co-operation with ECHA, who intend to incorporate the two human health components of the TRA into the new Chesar version 2. In addition to these two components, a spreadsheet implementation of EUSES is included in the integrated part of the TRA to facilitate environmental assessments. The integrated part of the TRA is also being updated. These new versions have been tested against the TRAv2 and other exposure models.