Australia Assigns Several Chemicals to the IChEMS Register

SG 179/24

Australia has regulated several chemicals under the IChEMS Register. These newly added entries will become effective on July 1, 2025.

In 2024, Australia’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) consulted over its proposed scheduling of several chemicals to the nation’s Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Instrument 2022 (IChEMS Register).

Among the proposed industrial chemicals/groups of chemicals were:

• Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
• Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
• Polychlorinated terphenyls (PCTs) (SafeGuardS 154/24)

On December 2, 2024, the DCCEW issued Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management (Register) Amendment (2024 Measures No. 2) Instrument 2024 (the Amendment) to designate the three aforementioned industrial chemicals to Schedule 7 of the IChEMS Register. This is a category for chemicals that are likely to cause serious or irreversible harm to the environment and with no essential uses. This designation will prohibit their import, manufacture, use and export, with derogations for unintentional trace contamination (UTC), laboratory-scale research or as a reference standard, disposal, and for articles in use before the effective date of the decision.

Highlights of several provisions for HCB, PCBs and PCTs in the Amendment are summarized in Table 1

Table 1

Additionally, the amendment identifies two lower-concern chemicals, lauryl (dodecyl) sulfates and linear alkyl benzene sulfonates, as Schedule 3 chemicals ‘Industrial chemicals that have the potential to cause harm to the environment’. This designation will also become effective on July 1, 2025.

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