Green Technology Forum

The British Standards Institute today published the first publicly available extensive guide to safe handling of nanomaterials. PD 6699-2:2007 Nanotechnologies - Part 2: Guide to safe handling and disposal of manufactured nanomaterials provides step-by-step guidance through the general approach to management of risks, information needs, hazard assessment, measurement of exposure, methods of control and disposal. It is intended to help manufacturers and users work with nanomaterials in a safe and responsible way.

The guide was drafted by the SAFENANO team and approved by BSI Committee NTI/1, Nanotechnologies.

SAFENANO Director Rob Aitken, who led the team appointed to draft the guide said “Publication of this guide provides an important step forward in the information available to manufacturers and users of nanomaterials. It is intended to be a pragmatic document which provides users with a practical way to deal with nanomaterial risk issues”.

The guide provides an innovative approach to hazard classification and suggests benchmark exposure levels for four classes of nanomaterials and an encouragement to collect exposure information. The benchmark levels are intended to provide reasonably cautions levels, but should not be considered as rigorously developed Workplace Exposure Limits. Control approaches for various scenarios such as deliberate aerosolization and transferring/mixing of dry materials, again with the encouragement that these are supported by measurement.

“Given the current state of knowledge about nanoparticle toxicology and risk it will be some time before formal workplace exposure limits can be developed. Our view is that this guide, and the benchmark levels suggested provides the best basis for progress at this stage.” said Aitken.

‘If you are developing, producing, handling, or otherwise working with engineered nanomaterials, READ THIS GUIDE!’ said Andrew Maynard, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies in in his review of the guide . ‘Its value lies in down-to-earth know-how. This is a shop-floor manual for making decisions where the rubber hits the road.’

source: safenano.org

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 5:48 am and is filed under Environment, Ethics, Health, Materials, Nanotechnology, News, Regulation, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.