The european union risk assessment on zinc and zinc compounds: The process and the facts

Abstract

A risk assessment on zinc and zinc compounds was carried out within the framework of Council Regulation 793/93/EEC on Existing Chemicals. This risk assessment basically followed the European Union (EU) technical guidance documents (TGDs). These TGDs are built on the current knowledge on quantitative risk assessments, mainly for organic chemicals. This article describes the tailor-made approach for the zinc risk assessment. This work lasted almost a decade and involved the contributions of all EU member states and industry, who discussed the risk assessment during technical meetings. The risk assessment is initially based on scientific findings but is interrelated with pragmatic considerations. It follows a comprehensive approach, covering both environmental and human health. In the environmental part, new methodologies were developed to deal with the natural background of zinc, essentiality, speciation, and the use of species sensitivity distributions. The major results and the process of drawing conclusions of the risk assessment are outlined: potential environmental risks of zinc and zinc compounds may occur at local and regional scales in surfacewater, sediment, and soil. No potential health risks were identified for consumers and man indirectly exposed via the environment. For workers, potential health risks were identified only for zinc oxide and zinc chloride.

Trace Metal Exposure and Effects on Soil‐Dwelling Species and Their Communities

“…Although controversial from the outset [31,32], the SSD approach has found wide application in metals risk assessment [17,33]. Take-up of the SSD approach for risk assessment was facilitated by a validation exercise that suggested that an HC 5 derived from the soil species toxicity database for Zn, provided the requisite level of protection for soil microbial functions (no effect on 95% of all functions) as measured by community physiological profiling using BIOLOG TM plates [34,35].…”

“…A recent example of the use of SSDs in metals risk assessment under EU existing substance guidelines has been the assessment for Zn [33]. In this appraisal, a large volume of toxicity data was available from the literature and this was further augmented with data generated in a series of targeted studies.…”

Ecotoxicology of Manufactured Nanoparticles

“…Growth inhibition experiments revealed comparable toxicity for nanoparticulate ZnO, bulk ZnO, and ZnCl 2 , with a 72 h IC50 value around 60 µ g/l zinc, which was attributable solely to dissolved zinc. Consideration of published species sensitivity distributions (Bodar et al , 2005 ) indicates that 5 mg/l zinc is suffi cient to cause adverse effects to a majority of aquatic species, including algae, invertebrates and fi sh. Thus, the most likely cause of nano (or bulk) ZnO aquatic toxicity is via dissolution and not necessarily through any specifi c particulate effects.…”

Assessment of current status of zinc in wastewater treatment plants to set effluent standards for protecting aquatic organisms in Japan

“…Although zinc is an essential element at trace concentrations and used not only for industries such as metal plating but also for personal care products, chronic toxicity for specific aquatic organisms was reported at a certain concentration in Japan (Hatakeyama 1989). Potential environmental risks of zinc in surface water were pointed out and wastewater effluent was considered as one of the pathways of zinc to surface water in Europe (Bodar et al 2005).…”