A new global inventory of over 350,000 chemicals and chemical mixtures, up to three times as many as previously believed, has been published for the first time.
Cynthia de Wit, an analytical chemist at Stockholm University, says that this inventory is useful for researchers tracking volatile, persistent, and long-range transport compounds. De Wit, who was not involved in the database creation, says we need a global framework because we live in a global economy.
For gaining a better understanding of the effects of certain chemicals on ecosystems and human health, previous research has relied heavily on US, Canadian, and Western European inventories that total around 100,000 substances. The chemical market shares of these countries have declined since the early 2000s, and now 40% of chemicals are traded among China, India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa, says Zhanyun Wang, an environmental scientist at ETH Zurich. To improve the situation, he and his colleagues compiled all the chemical inventories they could find worldwide.
A total of 16 countries and regions, encompassing all the top ten chemical producers, except for Brazil and Saudi Arabia, were included in the experiment, with inventories downloaded and combined from North America and Europe. There are 157,000 chemicals in the combined list, each identified by its Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) number, a number unique to a particular chemical. As well as 75,000 mixtures and polymers, it includes "chemical substances with unknown or variable compositions." CAS numbers have also been assigned to these substances.
Approximately 120,000 substances remain unidentified. Around 70,000 of these could not be linked to a CAS number due to inadequate descriptions. As confidential business information, the identities of the remaining 50,000 substances were protected.
Despite plans to release the full database, Wang says they must raise money to hire someone to design a user-friendly interface.
North American and European inventories are common measures of chemical exposure and impact, but about a quarter of CAS-numbered chemicals are not included. As a result of this study, Wang estimates that some 60,000 chemicals are manufactured, used, or imported by countries "that are not well understood and regulated."
The majority of chemical registrations are country-specific, as well. The majority of Taiwan's inventoried substances aren't listed anywhere else, for example.
According to Wang, this study illustrates the importance of more cooperation between researchers and governments in managing chemicals responsibly.
