PBT Profiler: Pollution Prevention Software from the U.S. EPA

Pollution Prevention software from the U.S. EPA, www.pbtprofiler.netMany are unaware that only a small fraction of the roughly 85,000 industrial chemicals currently in use in the United States—everything from flame retardants to adhesives—has undergone toxicity testing. Only two categories of chemicals require specific testing prior to manufacture: pesticides (about 2,000 active ingredients, regulated by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and drugs, cosmetics, and food additives (about 2,000 active ingredients, regulated by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act). All other chemicals (about 80,000) are essentially assumed to be safe.

The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) provides a mechanism for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require testing of a new chemical and requires that if a company has evidence that a chemical is toxic, that information must be disclosed to EPA. But only a small number of chemicals actually go through this testing—and as a result it is very difficult to find information on the risks of different chemicals. Enter EPA’s

PBT Profiler.

The

PBT Profiler is an online software tool that can assess the likely risks of a chemical based on the known effects of related chemicals. The tool was developed under contract to EPA by the Syracuse Research Corporation as a collaborative effort with three industry organizations (the American Chemistry Council, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, and the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association) with support from the nonprofit Environmental Defense. Approximately 50 person-years went into the development of the

PBT Profiler, according to Bill Waugh of EPA, and the tool has undergone extensive scientific peer review. While primarily designed for manufacturers—to avoid large investments in development of chemicals that will prove to be toxic—the tool can also be used by others to learn about likely risks of chemicals in building products. We at

EBN, for example, have begun using this tool on occasion to assess likely risks of chemicals in the building products we write about.

The

PBT Profiler estimates a chemical’s persistence in air, water, soil, and sediment (P); its potential for bioaccumulation in aquatic ecosystems (B), and its chronic toxicity to fish (T). A user enters the CAS registry number or formula of a chemical, and the software uses extensive internal databases to generate estimates of persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity. In a few seconds results are presented qualitatively with color-coded output (green, orange, or red for the level of concern) and quantitatively with specific values for P, B, and T. Results in orange or red indicate that EPA criteria have been exceeded.

One toxicologist

EBN spoke with questioned the quality of the toxicity data and how relevant it is to humans and other animals besides fish. Another drawback is that the

PBT Profiler does not work with all chemicals. Of the 80,000 chemicals on the TSCA inventory, about 38% cannot effectively be profiled with this tool, according to EPA. These include inorganic chemicals, reactive chemicals, organic salts, compounds with molecular weights over 1,000, mixtures, surfactants, and highly fluorinated compounds. Of the chemicals that can be profiled, the

PBT Profiler achieves about 90% concordance with measured data, says Waugh.

– AW