Recently, the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) has been consulting on listing four persistent organic pollutants - pentachlorobenzene, PFHxS, PFOS and PFOA - in Schedule 7 of the Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard (IChEMS) register. Once the relevant standards take effect, Australia will completely ban the import, export, manufacture and use of these four chemicals.

IChEMS

IChEMS is Australia's national approach to managing the introduction, use and disposal of chemicals, classifying and managing chemicals on the IChEMS register according to their environmental risk. The IChEMS register comprises seven schedules, of which Schedules 6 and 7 cover industrial chemicals of greatest concern: chemicals that may cause serious or irreversible environmental damage and will therefore ultimately be phased out. At present Schedule 6 contains no substances, and Schedule 7 contains three substances: hexabromobiphenyl, hexachlorobutadiene and polychlorinated naphthalenes. If this public consultation is approved, the number of substances in Schedule 7 will increase to seven.

NTEK capabilities

Material testing

Whole-vehicle air and material VOC, odour testing, fogging testing, material performance testing, failure analysis, material composition identification and morphology observation, crystal structure analysis

Hazardous substance testing for vehicles and components

ELV testing, phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, battery regulation testing, REACH Annex XVII and SVHC testing, POPs regulation testing

Other items: azo dyes, formaldehyde, PFAS analysis, organotin compounds, asbestos, halogens, dimethyl fumarate

Chemical management services

IMDS and CAMDS declaration agency services and training for automotive components, training on global environmental regulation compliance for automotive components, 3R calculation and recycling services and training