Australian Government Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH)

The DEH provides advice to NICNAS on the environmental implications of the importation, manufacture and use of new and existing industrial chemicals. The assessment reports submitted to NICNAS include an environmental hazard and risk assessment, including recommendations for the control measures necessary to minimise adverse environmental effects resulting from the stated use patterns of the chemicals.

A summary of chemical assessment reports completed by DEH during 2005-06 is shown in the Table below.

Assessments completed by DEH in 2005-06 compared with 2004-05

Assessment Category	Number of Environment Assessment Reports sent to NICNAS
	2005-06	2004-05
Standard notification	50	48
Limited notification	60	65
Polymer of Low Concern (PLC)	65	61
Self Assessment Polymer of Low Concern	36	18
Self Assessment Non Hazardous Polymer	1
Extension/Secondary notification	10	10
Sub-total	222	202
Commercial Evaluation Permit (CEC)	26	2
Low Volume Chemical Permit (LVC)	8	7
Early Introduction Permit (EIP)	Not available *	Not available *
Sub-total	34	9
TOTAL New Chemicals	256	211

* See Appendix 11 for information about EIPs