Improving commercial chemical stewardship in Canada

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Canada (under CEPA), the United States (under TSCA), the European Union (under the REACh program) and several other countries are under the legal obligation to evaluate the environmental behaviour of the many thousands of current-use and new commercial chemicals with the goal to identify harmful substances for the environment and human health. The current framework used to assess the ability of chemicals to biomagnify in food-webs has a major limitation in that it cannot account for the biological breakdown. This can cause the miscategorization of the environmental hazards of many commercial chemicals leading to unnecessary economic hardship, loss of societal benefits of chemical products as well as increased risk of human health and environmental effects. The proper global categorization of the environmental effects of commercial chemicals is of particular strategic importance to Canada because human and wildlife populations in Canada are