A Technical Advisory Group (TAG) consisting of scientific and technical experts from government, industry, environmental organizations and consultant groups, was formed in December 1998 to act as a resource to Environment Canada for identifying and resolving issues of a scientific, technical and process nature that emerge from the implementation of the Categorization Program. The TAG has met several times since it was established. The TAG also assisted in establishing technical Working Groups (WG) used to assemble experts to provide advice and recommendations for specific issues or tasks as required.

Technical Advisory Group Members

QSAR Workshop

As recommended by the TAG, an international Workshop on Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSARs) hosted by Environment Canada was held in Philadelphia in November 1999, to address the issue of predicting the properties and effects of chemicals based on structure. Since existing experimental persistence, bioaccumulation and ecotoxicity data are only available for a small number of the substances on the DSL, tools such as Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSARs) may be used to predict these end points. Each QSAR has limitations in terms of reliability of the predictions and since there exist many types or classes of substances on the DSL, the selection of a QSAR and the use of expert judgment is important in categorizing substances, in particular “difficult substances” (e.g., pigments, polymers, ionic surfactants). Therefore, the identification of the most reliable methods is required. As a result, an international expert QSAR workshop involving 27 participants was organized by Environment Canada on November 11-12th, 1999, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address these challenges. Proceedings of the Workshop are now available from the Existing Substances Division.

Inorganics Working Group (IWG)

The IWG is responsible for recommending a practical approach for categorizing and screening inorganic substances on the DSL. A report is being prepared that provides recommendations for categorization of inorganic substances relative to the criteria for persistence, bioaccumulation, in accordance with the Persistence and Bioaccumulation Regulations, and inherently toxic to non-human organisms in which a definition is currently being developed. A pilot study will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these recommendations using a representative sample of the inorganic substances on the DSL. Results from the pilot study on inorganic substances will be considered in the development of a Technical Guidance Document for the categorization of the inorganic substances. Recommendations for conducting screening level risk assessments for inorganic substances will also be provided by the IWG.