- Department:Chemicals Administration Ministry of Environment
On 28 December 2016, the Toxic and Chemical Substances Bureau of the EPA was officially established as an agency dedicated to the source control, auditing, and inspection of toxic and chemical substances, thus protecting public health. In the inauguration ceremony for the bureau director, Yen-Ju Hsieh, EPA Minister Ying-Yuan Lee vowed to safeguard food safety through strengthening the auditing and registration systems for toxic and chemical substances.
On 28 December 2016, the Toxic and Chemical Substances Bureau (TCSB) of the EPA was officially established in order to better safeguard the public’s health.
The Executive Yuan sees food safety as a major public health issue, having listed it as top priority and having drawn up a mechanism to carry out President Tsai Ing-Wen’s Five-Defense Food Safety Promotion Policy. Based in part on policy that focuses on at-source control, the TCSB is a higher-level, integrated unit set up from within current government units. Specifically tasked with toxic substance control, it is responsible for preventing food related risks at their source by controlling and tracking hazardous substances at-source as well as conducting audits and inspections related to toxic and chemical substances.
At the inauguration ceremony of TCSB director Yen-Ju Hsieh, Minister Ying-Yuan Lee pointed out how food safety affects all members of the public and how the EPA has taken responsibility for the management of chemical substances currently not under government control. However, because of manpower and resource limitations, interministerial coordination is needed to comprehensively implement food safety policy. The EPA outlined the challenges of integrating at-source management arising from having a total of 12 government authorities and 17 sets of regulations for chemical substances management, which leads to difficulties obtaining information on involved enterprises, the amounts of chemicals processed, and details on chemical flows through industrial chains.
Visions and Goals
1. Serving as the designated unit for at-source management of chemical substances
In recent years the public has been paying increasing attention to food safety, and considers prevention is better than fixing problems afterwards. Raising the level of managing authority, which the EPA has done by founding the TCSB as the designated competent authority, not only increases the quality and the scope of toxic and chemical substances control, but also helps reduce food-related risks.
2. Assisting related ministries to strengthen management of chemical substances
Currently, a total of 12 competent authorities are in charge of managing chemical substances, with 17 sets of regulations and 36 related management systems for more than 100,000 chemicals under control. One major challenge is to improve chemical substances information management, such as information on enterprises, amounts processed, and details on flows through industrial chains. Making a thorough inventory of existing management regulations and systems is another key challenge. The TCSB will help establish the Chemicals Cloud as a cross-ministerial chemical substance information service platform to provide relevant authorities with the current status of chemical substances management and to create references for future improvement.
3. Strengthening interministerial cooperation on audits and inspections
The TCSB will screen chemical substances that may enter food production streams. This will be followed by selecting enterprises that show high risk potential by using the Chemicals Cloud. Relevant ministries will then enhance inspections to prevent the use of such chemicals in food products. Also, a firewall against food-related risks has been established by building up audit and inspection capacities for chemical substances.
4. Staying aligned with international chemical substances control trends
To keep up with international standards, the TCSB will compile an inventory of existing chemical substance management regulations in accordance with the guidelines, Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), as well as hold regular interministerial meetings to ensure that Taiwan’s chemicals management is in line with international standards. The management of about 3,000 chemical substances is expected to be reinforced by 2020.
Major Policies
1. Use audits to keep listed chemical substances from entering food production
2. Completing the national chemical substance control system and keeping up with international management trends
3. Providing consumers food safety information by establishing a chemical substance knowledge map
4. Screening sources of chemical substances that have the potential to enter food production, and screening relevant enterprises in the upper and lower food manufacturing stream
5. Constructing a firewall against food-related risks by enhancing capacities for audits and inspections regarding chemical substances
6. Establishing technical teams to conduct onsite testing and inspections during toxic accidents to reduce harms and risks to the environment
7. Establishing an accident monitoring and consulting center to provide year-round real-time professional consulting services involving toxic and chemical substances
8. Sharing Taiwan’s experiences on toxic and chemical accident response with other nations by establishing professional training venues and providing international training programs for Southeast Asia
9. Assisting 5,000 joint emergency response associations to integrate civic capacities for response to toxic and chemical accidents and advance toward zero harm from accidents
Administrative Focuses
1. Set priority on the strengthening of management of chemical substances that have food-related risk potentials
To adhere to the international trends, the TCSB aims to reinforce management of toxic and chemical substances as well as risk prevention and control of specific chemicals, while working on preventing and lowering food-related risks by tracking hazardous substances. The TCSB will first pick out illegal food additives as the control priority, including 57 chemical substances, and focus on separating factory management of food-grade chemicals from that of industry-grade ones.
2. Gradually further reinforce management of high-profile chemical substances
Besides chemical substances with high food-related risk potentials, the TCSB will gradually intensify the controls on chemical substances that are of high international concern, recommended by government agencies for tighter controls, or are of high concern to the general public. Based on the existing database established according to the Toxic and Chemical Substances Control Act（毒性化學物質管理法）covering about 27,000 chemical substances, the TCSB will draw up a target list for tighter control. The list will include substances of high public concern, or those recommended by the 12 relevant ministries, based on 17 sets of toxic and chemical substance control regulations. Interministerial meetings will be held with invited experts to decide whether further risk assessment is needed. After the collection of related information and conducting risk assessments recommended at the expert meetings, the TCSB expects to add 500 more substances to the control list each year. Hence, five years from now, controlled chemical substances will be increased to 3,000 from the current 310. The control will be carried out under toxic chemical substances management, chemical substances registration management and the promotion of the safe use of chemical substances.
3. Continue construction of interministerial information service system on chemical substances control
As of the end of 2016, the Chemicals Cloud had undergone transferring of data from 36 information systems of 12 agencies. Data on 101,089 chemical substances was brought to one platform for system planning, research, and analysis and used to develop four new applications: basic information inquiry, multifaceted selection for questionable enterprises, cross-category data comparison, and a chemical substance knowledge map. Through information integration on the Chemicals Cloud, the TCSB will keep collecting chemical substance information and integrating management systems of all competent authorities, undertake effective audits and inspections with its limited manpower by narrowing down the scope of impact, and develop relevance analysis function modules based on individual agencies’ needs so as to enhance management structure and control quantity.
4. Establishing an interministerial coordination mechanism
(1) Establishing an interministerial coordination mechanism
For routine administrative coordination and management of regular chemical substances, an interministerial coordinating unit will be established. It will check listed suspects on the Chemicals Cloud platform, including chemicals with potential to enter food production streams such as malachite green and magnesium carbonate, and provide feedback to relevant departments via an inter-ministerial coordination mechanism so as to enhance joint at-source management.
(2) Holding risk assessment panel meetings on chemical substances
For chemicals of high international concern, those recommended for tighter controls by government agencies, and those of high domestic public concern, interministerial panels will be organized with experts invited to analyze the harmful levels of listed substances and conduct risk level information and risk evaluations in order to implement controls under the three guidelines for toxic substances management, chemical substance registration and control, and assistance and promotion of safe use.
(3) Establishing an expert evaluation panel for toxic and chemical substances control
Harmful levels and risk assessments will be undertaken according to the EPA’s Toxic Chemical Substances Screening Principles for chemical substances after analysis at the interministerial expert meetings. Afterwards, meetings will bring together panels of experts on toxic chemical substances and relevant ministries to evaluate control options for the substances in question and to give advice on toxicity classification.
(4) Establishing a chemical substance emergency report mechanism
A. Modeling after the reporting mechanism of the Environmental Protection and Food Safety Coordination Board jointly operated by the EPA, Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), Council of Agriculture (COA), and Consumer Protection Committee (CPC), to swiftly handle problems an integrated emergency contact and report mechanism will be established to deal with chemical substance-related matters and convene interministerial meetings when emergencies occur.
B. The TCSB will hold regular meetings twice a year. In addition, emergency coordinating meetings will be convened when needed.
Source: EPA Environmental Policy Monthly, p.1-4, Vol. XX, Issue 1, 2017
