Safe use of mixtures

FEICA Use Maps

To improve the quality of the information on typical use and conditions of use of adhesives and sealants communicated in the supply chain, FEICA committed to the Chemical Safety Report/Exposure Scenarios Roadmap and developed use maps to support Chemical Safety Assessments under REACH that reflect relevant and realistic information on adhesives and sealants. 

FEICA use maps compile, in a harmonised and structured way, the majority of the industrial and professional applications of the adhesive and sealant sector. Registrants are urged to use the data contained therein to prepare or update their REACH dossiers. More information is available on the ECHA website.       

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FEICA Use Map Guidance

Several downstream user associations under the umbrella of DUCC (Downstream Users of Chemicals Coordination Group) summarised their typical uses by including state-of-the-art use conditions of the main applications in use maps. As a result, FEICA published a guidance document for FEICA use maps.This guidance is not intended to describe the full use map concept but rather the specifics of applying the FEICA use map.

*Please note that CHESAR refers to ECHA's CHEmical Safety Assessment and Reporting tool. The FEICA use map Chesar files are only compatible with Chesar 3.6.

Please also see the FEICA leaflet titled 'How to improve your supply chain communication by implementing sector use maps', providing more information on the advantages linked to the implementation of sector use maps.

SWEDs and SUMIs

Sector-specific Workers Exposure Descriptions (SWEDs) and Safe Use of Mixtures Information (SUMIs)

SWEDs are meant to inform on operational conditions and risk management measures for activities by workers. Therefore, they can be used by registrants as inputs to their Chemical Safety Assessments. To help manufacturers and importers of substances to understand how substances are typically handled in the adhesives and sealants sector, FEICA developed SWEDs covering both industrial and professional applications. 

Information on the sector-specific approaches for deriving and communicating information for the safe use of mixtures by workers is available in the Guidance on "Sector-specific approaches towards developing and communicating information for the safe use of mixtures". 

A set of supporting slides explaining this sectorial "bottom-up” approach for deriving and communicating information for the safe-use of mixtures by workers are also available, in different languages, on the DUCC website under 'Documents' (search for 'SUMI'). 

This approach has two main elements: 

  • Safe Use of Mixtures Information (SUMIs), which aim to provide simplified and tailored information on the safe use of mixtures for end-users
  • Sector-Specific Workers Exposure Descriptions (SWEDs), which contain detailed information for the workers exposure assessment and are the basis of the SUMIs

SUMI pictograms: The Downstream Users of Chemicals Co-ordination Group (DUCC) of which FEICA is a member, has developed free-to-use pictograms to be used with the SUMIs. A total of seven pictogrammes are available also available on the DUCC website. Please read the DUCC Disclaimer and Terms and Conditions of Use before making use of the files.

Use of SUMIs: Please see DUCC communication "How to use SUMIs: operational framework".

SPERCs

Specific Environmental Release Categories (SPERCs)

In addition, FEICA has developed sector-specific SPERCs. These are one of the exposure assessment inputs contained in the above-mentioned use maps, aiming to support registrants to carry out the environmental part of the REACH Chemical Safety Assessment. The SPERCs allow the refinement of the environmental emission estimations, as they provide more realistic parameter values. The relevant SPERCs for the adhesive and sealant industry are documented in SPERC fact sheets (which include sector-specific parameters, risk management measures and operational conditions). The SPERC Factsheets provide information on conditions of use and the related releases to the environment in a downstream user sector. 

More information on how to use the SPERCs can be found in the Cefic guidance (version 2 - October 2012) which provides information from various industry sectors, including adhesives and sealants.

The revised FEICA SPERCs Fact sheets (revised Oct. 2017 - Jan. 2018) and CHESAR files are available for download hereunder:

NOTE 1: The second generation of SPERCs were reviewed in accordance with the work done under the Chemical Safety Report/Exposure Scenario Roadmap (area 2.4), and following up on the outcome of the ‘Best Practices Project’. As a result, a new harmonised SPERC Factsheet Template - with explanatory notes - was published by ECHA. To facilitate harmonisation, the revised FEICA SPERC factsheets are made available on this latest template.

NOTE 2: Cleaning files have been published and are available on the use map library. These cleaning packages are to be used by the assessors who have imported in their CHESAR the previous version of FEICA SPERC files. The cleaning files will obsolete non-relevant library items in the CHESAR application. They need to be imported in CHESAR box 6 ("SPERCs” tab and "Condition of use templates” tab respectively).

SCEDs

Specific Consumers Exposure Determinants (SCEDs)

SCEDs are sets of realistic exposure determinants that aim to facilitate the exposure assessment of different consumer products, and are included in area 2 of the Chemical safety report/Exposure scenario roadmap (area 2.5).

FEICA - together with DUCC and Concawe (Environmental Science for European Refining) - participated in this work, and the first developments resulting from this activity are now available: 

More information about SCEDs can be found on the DUCC webpage 'activities'. 

To assist companies with the Chemical Safety Assessments of adhesives and sealants consumer’s products, FEICA SCEDs are publicly available as supporting information on their typical conditions of use. The FEICA SCEDs are intended to represent realistic assumptions for consumer exposure assessments for these specific products.

At present, FEICA has developed SCEDs factsheets covering the following adhesive and sealant products: universal glues, glues for DIY-use, spray glues and joint sealants. 

Information on the use maps packages are available on the FEICA Extranet and the ECHA use map webpage. Should you have any questions or feedback regarding the FEICA use maps, please contact info@feica.eu.