Mixture Assessment Factor and its Implications for the PPP Industry

Mixture Assessment Factor and its Implications for the PPP Industry

At the recent Dublin Plant Protection Symposium, presented by Kerona Scientific Ltd, Caroline Raine, Technical Associate Director of Ricardo Energy and Environment spoke about the Mixture Assessment Factor (MAF) and its Implications for the PPP Industry.

Caroline explained how the European green deal is changing the panorama in the PPP industry by focusing on a number of key factors:

• Focus on essential use, banning most harmful consumer products unless they are essential. This already happened in the past (e.g., persistent organic pollutants)
• Take accountability of the cocktail effect
• PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances)
• Boost the investment of safe and sustainable chemicals referring both to financial and environmental sustainability
• Promote the resilience of the supply chains of critical substances
• Focus on the one substance, one-assessment principle
• Play a leading global role promoting high safety standards worldwide

The impact achieved by these key factors is the change in legislations like REACH or CLP. Right now, the European Commission is working on the latest REACH update, expected for end of 2023/beginning of 2024 including some interesting changes like, the expansion of the generic risk assessment, a new mixture assessment factor or in the case of CLP, a new hazard classification for endocrine disruption, for human health and for environment.

Regarding the MAF, an assessment factor is a number that multiplies the endpoint obtained from laboratory test results enabling us to simulate real world conditions. The advantages of a MAF consist of an additional safety factor that eliminates uncertainty and the reduction of exposure.

The impact of this on the industry depends heavily on the substance. There are products that will not be affected at all, others will need refinements to pass the risk assessment and there will be some substances that will not pass. In the case of green formulations, they should not be affected but can have some trouble if their co-formulants are not safe enough.

Industry should list all the substances they have to supervise the changes that will individually affect their mixtures. They should also consider investing in research to find new safer alternatives.

If you would like a copy of the presentation, you can purchase the slides from the PPP Symposium here:

https://kerona.ie/product/dublin-ppp-symposium-2022-speakers-presentations/

Please don’t hesitate to contact the team at Kerona Scientific for regulatory support with REACH and risk assessments at info@kerona.ie