Australia Updates Guide on Categorization of Chemicals at the Nanoscale

For introducers (importers or manufactures) who introduce industrial chemicals to Australia, it’s necessary to affirm the introduction categories that apply to the chemicals imported or manufactured in Australia. The Categorization Guide¹, which was first released in 2020 by the Australian Government, is a step-by-step instruction for introducers to categorize their chemical introduction as listed, exempted, reported or assessed.

Source: AICIS website

As more and more introducers asked for help in working out whether an introduction is a ‘certain chemical at the nanoscale’, the Australian Government issued the fourth revision to this guide - Version 1.4 of Categorization Guide² on March 31, 2022. This version makes changes to some steps to give more guidance on the categorization of certain chemical at the nanoscale. More specifically:

• Adding more questions to Step 4.1 and Step 5.1 – “Is your chemical a certain chemical at the nanoscale?”, more options in the Q&A format are provided to help introducers get a clear outcome if they are introducing such type of chemical;

• Adding more information to Step 4.1 and Step 5.1 – “Where an introduction is a specified class of introduction”, e.g., when will the introductions be categorized as specified classes, government’s concern about them, and extra information required when submitting an assessment application for a specified class of introduction, etc.;

• Clarifying in Step 4.5 and Step 5.5 “Special cases – introductions that CANNOT have a very low indicative human health risk or a very low indicative environment risk” that the introduction of solids/dispersions relating to chemicals at the nanoscale cannot be indicated that it is very low risk to human health or the environment if they do not have solubility or particle size information;

*Note: Chemical that is introduced as a solid or a dispersion where there is no information available on its water solubility or its particle size, and the introduction of any nanoscale portion of the chemical (the part that has a particle size range of 1nm to 100nm) is incidental to the introduction of the non-nanoscale portion.

• Adding next steps to Step 6 – “Next steps: if your introduction is categorized as assessed”, one of the following applies:

  1) If the chemical is not on the Austrian Inventory of Industrial Chemicals (AIIC), introducers must be registered with the AICIS website and must apply for an assessment certificate. The authority will assess the chemical introduction. Introducers can start introducing after the authority issue an assessment certificate.

  2) If the chemical is on the AIIC and the introduction is outside the parameters of the 'defined scope of assessment' in the AIIC terms of listing for the chemical, introducers must be registered with the AICIS website and apply to vary the terms of an AIIC listing.