Toward Property-Based Regulation

Abstract

An expanding web of adverse impacts on people and the environment has been steadily linked to anthropogenic chemicals and their proliferation. Central to this web are the regulatory structures intended to protect human and environmental health through the control of new molecules. Through chronically insufficient and inefficient action, the current chemical-by-chemical regulatory approach, which considers regulation at the level of chemical identity, has enabled many adverse impacts to develop and persist. Recognizing the link between fundamental physicochemical properties and hazards, we describe a new paradigmproperty-based regulation. By regulating physicochemical properties, we show how governments can delineate and enforce safe chemical spaces, increasing the scalability of chemical assessments, reducing the time and resources to regulate a substance, and providing transparency for chemical designers. We highlight sparse existing property-based approaches and demonstrate their applicability using bioaccumulation as an example. Finally, we present a path to implementation in the United States, prescribing roles and steps for government, nongovernmental organizations, and industry to accelerate this transition, to the benefit of all.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Food Packaging: Migration, Toxicity, and Management Strategies

“…Such an approach for managing PFASs is not a novel concept and is aligned with the proposed concepts of essential use and property-based regulation, the restriction proposal recently introduced in the European Union, as well as the call for simplifying chemicals by reducing use and by abiding by green chemistry principles . A class-based phase-out of PFASs in food contact materials, including food packaging, would effectively protect public health while enabling the creation of a safe, circular economy.…”

Mitigating Contaminant-Driven Risks for the Safe Expansion of the Agricultural─Sanitation Circular Economy in an Urbanizing World

“…However, it is not feasible to experimentally determine effect concentrations for all identified chemicals and for multicontaminant mixtures identified in the environment. Tackling groups of chemicals rather than single substances has the potential to accelerate chemical risk assessment; this together with high throughput methodologies and in silico efforts directed toward better understanding and prediction of the environmental fate of chemicals, would allow for systematic, “bottom-up” assessments of contaminants. These approaches coupled with suspect and nontarget screening of materials destined for reuse may help to ensure efforts are targeted toward chemicals, or chemical combinations, of most concern …”