Data On Chemicals Get Easier To Find

The Environmental Protection Agency is an enormous repository for information on commercial chemicals. For example, EPA has for decades amassed data on the health effects, physical-chemical properties, and production volume of these substances. The information is online for anyone to see.

If people can find it, that is. Those looking for specific information about a particular chemical have faced the often-daunting challenge of searching through scores of agency webpages to unearth it.

Now, finding the data EPA has on a commercial chemical is getting a lot easier. Earlier this month, the agency launched an online tool called ChemView. EPA intends for the tool to facilitate the public’s access to information that manufacturers have submitted to the agency under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the federal law governing chemical production. The publicly available portion of this material excludes any data that companies have claimed as confidential business information.

ChemView represents “a big step beyond” what the agency has been able to do before in helping the public get to information on commercial substances, says Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, director of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics. She says the tool initially covers data on about 1,500 substances. But over time, she notes, the agency will add information on tens of thousands more chemicals.

ChemView, which is at java.epa.gov/chemview, allows users to search for data in a variety of ways, including by chemical name, Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Registry number, physical-chemical properties, health effects, or the use of the substance. (CAS is a part of the American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN.) Results of ChemView searches link to reports on a substance’s health and environmental effects as well as to information on production, use, and exposure.

In addition, the online tool connects to EPA’s Safer Chemical Ingredients List, which the agency uses as a guide when deciding which products are allowed to use its voluntary Design for the Environment ecolabel. The agency says it expects ChemView will help raise awareness and inform choices of safer ingredients in products.

Joel A. Tickner, associate professor of community health and sustainability at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, says the tool makes it easier for the public to get to information on chemical use that manufacturers submit every few years to EPA. Previously, this required completely downloading a large database, then combing through it to locate the information of interest, he tells C&EN.

“We think it’s important for the public to have access to data on chemicals,” echoes Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council. He says the trade association of chemical makers is currently examining ChemView and expects to give the agency feedback about the tool and potentially improving it.