ASTM Int'l Declarable Substances Guide - ASTM F 2577 - Offers Case Studies to Illustrate Assessment Process
January 22, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS
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ASTM International Committee F40 on Declarable Substances in Materials approved its second standard, ASTM F 2577 - Guide for Assessment of Materials and Products for Declarable Substances.
The guide, which is under the jurisdiction of ASTM Subcommittee F40.02 on Management Practices and Guides, follows ASTM F 2576 - Terminology Relating to Declarable Substance in Materials, which was approved in June 2006.
According to Timothy McGrady, chairman of Committee F40, and president of Serious Science, ASTM Committee F40 was organized to assist global industry in regulating substances in materials.
The committee was formed in response to legislation that restricts the concentrations of certain substances allowable within materials and products.
The most prominent of these regulations are EU directives on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS), end-of-life vehicles (ELV) and packaging and package waste.
"Unfortunately, these regulations and materials declarations have caused a great deal of superfluous testing and data gathering, because the lists of declarable substances are general in nature but are being applied to individual materials without regard to the particular nature of those materials," said McGrady.
"For example, a list of declarable substances may contain hundreds of organic substances such as dioxins, furan, PCBs, PBBs and PBDEs, but those substances are not ingredients or contaminants within wrought metals; yet enforcement authorities or purchasing agents may require empirical data that wrought metals do not contain such substances.”
ASTM F 2577 provides a general description of the process of assessing materials or products to substance declaration requirements. In addition, the guide introduces an alternate means of assessing materials other than testing or gathering empirical data: the use of a priori knowledge, that is, information that can be gained through the application of scientific principles and logical deduction.
"A priori information on materials is often common sense to materials scientists, but it is not common knowledge among the general public, particularly those who are requesting information on products," said McGrady. "Using the wrought metals example, it is a priori knowledge that allows us to discount the need to gather empirical data on organic substances within wrought metal materials."
The new ASTM F40 guide minimizes testing to just those substances that may be present in the material being evaluated. In addition, ASTM F 2577 provides a template and case studies to illustrate the process of assessing materials and products for compliance with declarable substances requirements.
Source: ASTM International.