Standardisation of release factors for the exposure assessment under REACH Developments since 2010

Under the European Chemicals legislation REACH the release of a substance into the environment is estimated on the basis of emission factors. For this purpose industry can deduce realistic emission factors by developing specific Environmental Release Categories (spERCs) and documenting them in a corresponding fact sheet. The current project builds up on an earlier assessment conducted for the German Federal Environment Agency in 2010. In the current project the plausibility of emission factors and the quality of documentation was assessed for all spERCs and spERC factsheets available in July 2013. The implementation of suggestions from the former assessment was evaluated. Although the quality of spERCs has increased, there is still a need for further improvement.