Serving the regulatory compliance community - Janet Greenwood, TT Environmental

In this episode, I speak with Janet Greenwood of TT Environmental. 

Janet has been working for many years in chemicals safety and regulatory compliance, and runs a community of regulatory professionals (the Chemical Regulations Self Help Group) here in the UK, and a regular newsletter (Chemicals Coffee Time) with over 4000 subscribers across the globe. 

Janet therefore brings an important perspective from regulatory professionals and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) working 'on the ground' to address regulatory compliance within the chemicals industry.

Our conversation covers:

• Janet's background and the origins of her community and newsletter
• Chemicals Coffee Time - during lockdown and beyond
• Janet's journey to becoming an environmental consultant
• Environmental permits, sustainability and ISO 14001
• Top-down procedures vs individual vigilance
• Safety Data Sheets (SDS), CLP labels, and the need to keep the end user in the focus
• Dealing with the deluge of regulatory changes in the EU and UK
• The impact of new substances of very high concern (SVHCs) 
• Reflections on the evolution and broader impacts of REACH
• The shifting chemicals marketplace and shared responsibility
• Views on environmental challenges, and the concept of stewardship

TT Environmental Consultancy Yorkshire | EP, IPPC, REACH, COMAH, ADMS & Environmental modeling

The Chemical Regulations Self Help Group – Peer support for REACH, CLP and other chemical regulations

Sign up to Chemicals Coffee Time weekly - Chemicals Coffee Time

Chemicals Coffee Time Monthly newsletter - LinkedIn

Visit my website for more content and insights www.embarkchemical.com

Transcript

Chris: Hello everyone and welcome to the Chemical Journeys Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be speaking with the one and only Janet Greenwood from TT Environmental. Janet, thanks for joining me.

Janet: Oh, Chris, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm slightly worried to be the one and only, but I'll take it.

Chris: Well, I hope people will discover what I mean as we go through the conversation. But you are a fellow small business owner working in the regulatory compliance space. And I was really interested to talk with you on the podcast because you do a lot of work supporting people who are working in the chemicals industry to grapple with all these complex regulatory requirements that are coming out all the time. And so I thought you could help us bring a bit of a perspective to people who perhaps aren't in that environment of what it's really like. I'm aware that you manage a community, and you also have a very popular weekly newsletter and a vlog as well. So in a way, you are one of the original influencers in the chemical space.

Janet: Oh, goodness me. Yes. Well, just to explain what you mean by community — that's the Chemical Regulation Self-Help Group I set up with a couple of clients in 2006 to deal with this enormous regulation called REACH. At the time I was working in environmental permitting and COMAH, and I realised that when REACH came along, if we did not do something about helping the chemical industry get through the REACH regulations, we were going to end up with no chemical industry left. And that would be a very bad thing, because I've been aware for a long time that we rely so much on chemicals to give us modern society — whether it's from fertilisers, pesticides, refrigeration, freezing, all the things that give us safe food and healthcare. The fact that I was busy washing my hands with Fairy Liquid this morning because I had a little bleach spill — you know, all these kind of things. Yes, I did rinse the bleach off very, very well first. But all these marvellous cleaners that we have, the dye stuffs in the fabric that I'm wearing and you're wearing — these things were at risk from this massive regulation. So that group has grown from two members up to probably about 70 or 80 industry members now, with monthly meetings. I'll send you through the link — it's chemself-help.co.uk. Shameless plug there. So that's the community. But we have a second, wider community through Chemicals Coffee Time, which is the weekly email newsletter. And then I do a monthly LinkedIn greatest hits, which is completely pro bono. That was my baby during lockdown — my lockdown project.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: All of my client base — which is sort of twofold: health and safety managers and regulatory affairs managers — all of a sudden these people were sent home, and they were on their own. And of course I've worked from home because my business is home-based. Sometimes I have staff, sometimes I don't. And I realised all of my colleagues, all of my friends were stuck at home with no idea what was going on — first of all about COVID. We needed to know, because we're scientists and engineers and we'd like to know how things work. And the other thing that happened was how to really keep themselves going when you're at home on your own.

Chris: Mm.

Janet: So it was sort of two communities, as it were — the self-help group community and the wider community of all my colleagues and everybody I knew. And I did a daily newsletter during COVID for probably two, two-and-a-half years, every weekday.

Chris: Yes. I wanted to mention that to you actually in the course of this conversation, because I think what you did there was something quite remarkable — putting out that newsletter every single day and putting a video out every single day in the midst of COVID, providing that commentary on what was coming out in the news and also what was going on in the chemical regulatory world. I think you did keep a lot of people going. I don't think we should underestimate that. And there were ups and downs — you could see it some days were harder than others for you as well. So I think that speaks a lot to your conscience and your wanting to provide service to others.

Janet: Oh, thank you very much. For me, it got into a daily rhythm and I made sure there was a funny video every day, because none of us had navigated a lockdown before. None of us had been in a situation where there was all this science-ish stuff coming out, and we didn't know exactly what was going on. And then like you say, there were still the regulatory programmes running in the background. It gave me a platform to help people and I'm really grateful that people felt it was useful. And of course now we're out of that — I have the weekly newsletter, et cetera. And it's free to sign up, and it's free if you've got an event or you've got something you want to say that's going to interest the readers. So these things are my way of putting back, as it were, to the industry that I've got so much from.

Chris: Yeah, no, it's really great. And maybe we could talk a bit more about your newsletter and what your methodology is for putting that together, because you have the regular sections, don't you? I really like the way that you bring other people's contributions into it. You always credit people who have given you some useful intel that's gone into the newsletter. You always have your Reasons to be Cheerful videos. And then you have a recipe as well, right?

Janet: Yeah.

Chris: But then there's also the regulatory part.

Janet: Well, it's a magazine and it's still very much like it was in lockdown, because once I started to get into a rhythm, we had individual things on individual days through the week. We would have process safety, I think that was a Thursday, and we had the weekend recipe on a Friday. It's still an evolving beast — it still evolves around what the issues are. But at the moment we've got what's happening in the UK, what's happening in the EU for regulatory affairs, anything around the world, chemical snippets — which is really weird quirky things or interesting bits of information — a new company's taken over another company, or whatever. And obviously Process Safety Corner, which is a big bit of it, because with my COMAH work, even though it's on the environmental permitting side, you still have to understand about major accident hazards as initiators. I'm really passionate about keeping that side of the business and that information going. We have a weekend read as well, and an infographic. It's all very structured. The videos went from daily to weekly. I also put in the odd dad or mum joke, or things I've been thinking about in the past week or two — things I think people might enjoy. One of our favourite things is our collection of periodic tables. We've collected different sorts, and in fact I think either this week or last week, there was a 3D vertical Lego periodic table.

The way that I collect the data — first of all, we have a really engaged readership, which I am so grateful for. Sometimes it's people who've been with us from the off, sometimes it's people who are new. It doesn't matter: if you've got something you want to say or you've spotted something that's part of what we talk about, I am always extremely grateful. First of all, it saves me time. Secondly, it helps people who are reading the newsletter understand that this isn't just something you pick up and read — there are real people behind this and we're all going through the same thing. And it doesn't matter if they're consultants like you and I, Chris, or they're in industry. We're all facing the same challenges with the regulations.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: I think that the regulations for the regulatory affairs side of things — so REACH, CLP, the product safety regulations as it were — are different because they are a step removed from daily operations. Whereas the work for permitting and COMAH that I do is I'm out there, I'm on site, I've got my hard hat and really ancient safety boots. I'm in my element. I'm chatting to the lads on site and having them lift manhole covers for me.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: It's very practical and hands-on.

Chris: Yes. And I think that's the thing, right? We're talking about chemicals and there's so much happening in the regulatory space, but a lot of the work that you are doing is linked to safety and acute hazards and major incidents. So maybe you could just tell people a bit about what lies under the lid of that line of work.

Janet: Right. When I set the business up, I had no idea that I was going to be an environmental consultant. I was made redundant from the chemical industry, which I loved, had a major domestic crisis at the same time, and ended up deciding I would teach. I trained for a year. I taught for a year. I was the world's worst — let me tell you, I'm useless in that kind of environment. Plus they had me teaching three separate subjects in my first year at secondary school — outrageous. I went back to temping, which I'd done before as a secretary, and decided I would sort of merge my secretarial work with the chemical industry and set up as technical typing, which is where the TT comes from.

Chris: Okay.

Janet: I was back on site at Rhodia helping them with this thing called IPPC, which was new at the time. We all thought it was mainly a paperwork issue, although we now know better. The head of site said: we found some black stuff under the main building — you're a soil scientist, find out what it is and tell us about it. And that's the point where it was like: well, I'm trained as a soil scientist, I understand chemicals from working in the industry, and I know my way around bureaucracy. This is what I should be doing. The first phase of the business, as it were, was very much based around helping people get through their IPPC applications. My first hire was Sandra Hillbrook, formerly Sandra Jackson, who's a contaminated land geologist. We spent quite a lot of time helping people with their site reports, their applications, their variations, and we still do a certain amount of that. And then COMAH was an obvious sort of add-on to that particular niche. And that is all to do with pollution prevention.

It makes me smile — raises an eyebrow — when people go on about sustainability, and sustainability to them is all about: here's another audit that you need to do. And yet when you think about it, my business has always been about sustainability, because you can't make chemicals safely and with as low an environmental impact as possible without that. The social contract that we as the industry have with the public — although the public don't understand it — the social contract is there: that we will do these things that help them, but on our side, we have to do it as safely and as cleanly as possible. So the sustainability industry is something that — well, we don't get involved in ISO 14001, for example. If you look at what you have to do under an environmental permit, you are given legally binding targets on your emissions, you are given legal requirements to report. ISO 14001, on the other hand, you set your own targets — it's not legally binding. There's a hell of a lot of cost and expense. And in the past, under what has become environmental permitting, you'd get a tick in the box for environmental management if you had ISO 14001, and yet that certification could be written with virtually nothing about the chemicals you were actually making or handling.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: I remember somebody saying to me, around 2002, 2003: oh, do you know so-and-so? He's a really big environmental person, Leeds, degree in politics.

Chris: Yeah. Hearing what you're saying there, I think a few things jump out at me. You mentioned sustainability becoming all about procedures — box-ticking, not thinking through what's really needed to make a real impact. I think as a society we have a bit of a problem in that we like having a process. We like having a form to follow, being mechanically going through a checklist. Because it allows us to be a bit on autopilot. And I think that's something that has now come to the sustainability area — there's been a lot of criticism recently that it's over-proceduralising things, and not actually changing operations on the ground. Or making promises for the future that, when the future comes, they don't ultimately deliver on, and yet they've reaped a lot of benefits from making those promises.

Janet: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting what you just said, Chris, about not changing operationally. Now, you'd think that with the control of major accident hazards — the most hazardous sites — you'd think that when people go on site to do an audit and say, you need to change this because if you don't sort this out, it's a precursor to a major accident, you'd think that would cause operational change. You'd think that would be high up on people's agendas.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: And yet one of my process safety colleagues, Tracy Kelly, remarked on LinkedIn this week that she can't get people to take her seriously. And she actually ended up doing a master's in psychology to try and work out why that was.

Chris: What was going on?

Janet: You know, it's weird — sometimes jobs like sustainability audits, which have nothing to do with actually making things safely, are higher up the agenda than process safety. So the appearance of things is more important sometimes than actually doing things the right way. And my job is all about making sure people do things the right way — and finding the truth underlying that paperwork, as it were.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: We forget sometimes, don't we? I suffer from it myself. If I'm writing a safety data sheet for a client, you have to put yourself in the mindset of the person who is using the product. And it's really easy to write a safety data sheet for somebody who is going to formulate with the product and who needs all of that technical data. And yet — oh, I can't be bothered putting anything in about gloves. But that's the important bit. That's the really, really important bit.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: To remember, when we're in regulatory affairs: what is the underlying truth of this? Not just, oh, I've got to go through this box-ticking exercise and fill the safety data sheet in, or check that the software's done it for me. Think about the person using the chemical — and indeed the person who might be writing the safety case — and the information that they really need.

Chris: Yes. I do think the tendency to over-proceduralise things is also part of it. It gives people — not cover exactly, but it almost kind of distracts them from being vigilant and allows them to take their eye off the ball, because they say, yeah, yeah, I've ticked the box.

Janet: Vigilant — that is the word. We have to be vigilant every time we are handling chemicals, even if we're just using bleach to clean out our compost bin as I was this morning.

Chris: Yeah, and there's no substitute for that really. It's almost at an individual responsibility level, isn't it? You're as good as how vigilant you are and how much responsibility you take for looking out for the blind spots that perhaps aren't covered in the rules and the tick boxes.

Janet: And on a related note to the box-ticking exercise, this brings us rather nicely round to REACH and all its works as it applies to the safety data sheet. Have you seen recently that they're talking about perhaps cutting back, or even removing, the exposure scenarios?

Chris: I had not heard that. That's very interesting. I did work on those early in my career.

Janet: I have so many problems with the exposure scenario. When somebody is three, four, five or six steps away from the end user because of the complexity of the supply chains, how can they do a risk assessment for the end user? You can't. In my view, one of the readers of the safety data sheet is your health and safety manager who's using chemicals outside of industry. And we need to provide them with the information they need so that they can do the risk assessment themselves, or a professional can, and so that they and their people can protect themselves — and wear gloves when they're handling bleach, for example.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: Wear gloves.

Chris: It is very interesting that they're talking about that, because that was always something that was raised — we used to have a safety data sheet that was, I don't know, five to ten pages, something like that. And then all of a sudden we were having safety data sheets that were hundreds of pages long, full of numbers and codes that had been generated at the top of the supply chain, like you say. And people were saying this is not of much value to people who are working on the ground. And it created a huge amount of activity and effort for people to build and maintain those. I did hear recently that there may be an update now on the UK side, because at one point the UK was talking about increasing the requirements for exposure information as part of UK REACH.

Janet: We're still waiting to hear what happens about UK REACH. Although on the grapevine — because I have some wonderful readers, the best ones being anonymous, of course — there are those who are thinking that we've had the different announcement on lead ammunition, and various announcements that have been kind of backed up while there have been all the discussions between the EU and the UK about an ongoing relationship. So rumour has it we will be hearing about UK REACH. But honestly, Chris, I cannot tell you how much of a dead end I think the whole exposure scenario thing is. My heart sank like a stone when it was originally announced for UK REACH that we wanted to do more exposure scenarios. Either something is safe to be handled by the consumer or it is not. We have to stop nannying people. We have to stop pretending that caveat emptor — let the buyer beware — hasn't served us well for 2,000-odd years since the days of ancient Rome. Life is dangerous, life is risky. We cannot infantilise people to the point where they cannot make a decision. We can educate them about the hazards of chemicals. We should provide them with the information to then make their own minds up about how they're going to handle said chemicals.

Chris: Hmm.

Janet: We should definitely not be going down that route in UK REACH, because the only people who will win are the big consultants, not the little ones like you and me. We'll just be having kittens trying to deal with all the paperwork. Those are the people who win, and the regulators who will get a lot of kudos for being seen to do something.

Chris: Yeah. There'll be a big pile of additional work for people to do, and it remains to be seen what the benefit will be.

Janet: Yeah. I mean, one of the things I have been pulled up on in the past is the way that I talk about CLP and REACH — classification, labelling, safety data sheet. That is the order you do things in. Oh, no, my software does the safety data sheet first and then I do the label. No. The classification is the most important thing, and the classification generates the label, and that then goes into the safety data sheet. But the safety data sheet also has the non-CLP hazards, like occupational exposure limits, and the REACH designations like PBT/vPvB — although of course in the EU those have now been brought into CLP.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: You have to focus on the thing that's really important. I say to people who come on a training course or the self-help group: the most important thing you will ever write for chemical communication is the label, because that's there when people open the bottle or the jar or whatever.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: And the safety data sheet very often is the small print. And what do we know about small print? Nobody reads it.

Chris: Yeah. Or if they even get it at all.

Janet: Exactly. Under REACH, people are supposed to have access to safety data sheets. But if you're on a site that's got 500 safety data sheets and your regulatory affairs person is having kittens trying to keep them all up to date — because there are so many changes coming through at the moment — what are the chances of the person who's actually opening a valve getting hold of the safety data sheet that he probably needs to know in case he gets a splash from said material?

Chris: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Oh, this guy's been drenched in something — quick, get to the filing cabinet, find that SDS.

Janet: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah, no. I mean, that helps to bring, I think, the reality of working on the ground on industrial sites to people's awareness. Because I will confess that after I'd done my chemistry degree, I did start a job in a product stewardship type role — well, it was in the ecotoxicology team at Shell, but I started working straight away on the REACH regulation. I was on a site adjacent to a refinery, so there were some safety procedures and drills that we had to perform. But it was nothing like actually being on the ground, moving chemicals about, operating the machinery and things like that. I did actually remember visiting a site at one point and hearing from the operators. The way they spoke was very interesting because they could have been doing any kind of industrial activity, but they had this concern about what it was that they were actually using, and they had to trust that the situation they were working in was safe — that somebody had assessed it and it was safe.

Janet: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing, isn't it? There's a risk that those of us who are flying a desk get too disconnected from what's going on on site. And that even as consumers, we might forget that the Fairy Liquid you use is a chemical product. And we'll go, oh, it's got 'irritant' on the back of it — yeah, that's good enough, sort of thing. We lose touch with that. And that's one of the reasons why I spend such a lot of time trying to keep people in touch with the fact that chemicals are hazardous.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: It's why I like having Process Safety Corner in the newsletter — because it's a reminder to everybody, whether they read it or not, that everything we do with chemicals has the potential to be toxic, has the potential to be lethal. Even water, as we know, is definitely fatal in over-consumption — and fatal in under-consumption too.

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

Janet: Fatal.

Chris: Yes. And thinking about the practicalities of it — I understand there's also some discussion about the proposed changes to the labelling requirements in CLP. I noticed that you mentioned there's some discussion about whether proposed changes might be rolled back on labelling requirements. Is there a practicality implication to that? Maybe you know a bit more about that than I do.

Janet: Oh, well, it's been breaking news this week. On Tuesday there was a lot of discussion in the European Parliament and they've dropped a whole load of proposals out of it, including some draft regulations. Now, before we get really over-excited about this, it is not unknown for draft regulations to change. The big issue at the moment, which is the label format — things like a minimum font size, and I think one of the particularly irritating things was the 120% line spacing. Very, very difficult for everybody. So, if I'm reading these documents correctly, that has been rolled back — they've said, no, you can do that if you like, but we are not actually going to force you to do it anymore. But we are at the stage where, first of all, it is in draft, and secondly, we haven't read the small print yet.

Chris: Hmm.

Janet: When you start to try and apply these things, you don't know — hang on, are they actually still trying to bring it in by the back door, for example? Now I'm not saying that's necessarily going to happen, but you never know with the EU. And the other thing you never know is how individual member states are going to apply the rules, because you can have different applications of an identical overarching EU regulation in different member states.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: Although this is really a step in the right direction, because basically it would've meant everybody had to redo their labels. The room on the label for information was going to be greatly reduced by the minimum font sizes and spacings, and it was going to cost industry an awful lot of money. And the hazard information was going to be identical from the hazard classes, of course. And it was clearly going to affect anybody who was trying to sell products in both GB and the EU. So it affects us too, because people still do that. Here is your label — as long as the classification's the same and it doesn't have the new EU hazard classes, which are not allowed on the GB label, as I'm sure you're well aware.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: You know, it's this thing of: here is the label, here are two legal entities — one GB, one EU — and it's going to be sold in English-language markets. It's going to go into the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland — there you are, bang, one label. So yeah, it's a movement in the right direction, but it's also not finished yet.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: We don't fully understand it yet. And I think this is one of the problems with stuff coming out of the EU — they are writing things more badly, they are producing enormous changes very quickly. And there are only a few regulatory affairs people in any business unless it's a consultancy specialising in that. You have limited resource and you have just floods of changes coming out. You have the regulatory change, you have the REACH update coming in the next year or two for EU REACH, you have GB REACH proposals coming out, you have obviously the CLP changes that are just starting to bite in the EU.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: And then you have the bit nobody talks about publicly, but which really affects regulatory affairs people at the sharp end — which is new SVHCs. I don't know how much work you've done with the large consumer companies, but they very often will not touch anything with an SVHC in it.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: They just go, no. Which means people need to reformulate even if it's in an otherwise non-hazardous product. It triggers the safety data sheet, et cetera. New SVHCs are an issue. New restrictions too, and especially new harmonised classifications.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: Since Christmas, just about every week I'm talking about new harmonised classifications from the EU. Where is it going to stop?

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: We're all only trying to do our best. If a new harmonised classification comes along, because under the Duty of Care and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in the UK, we are duty-bound to act on new hazard information as it becomes available to us.

Chris: Yep. I'm sorry to tell you, Janet, but I don't think it's going to stop anytime soon. In fact, I think things are really only getting started. But that's the thing — these things come down the tracks and turn on a lot of work all through the supply chain as people scramble to reformulate, and it creates a lot of disruption. It's great that you can paint this picture of your average regulatory professional working on the ground.

Janet: Yeah, it's such a difficult job. And it's difficult for purchasing teams as well. In the past it was fairly straightforward — when we had CHIP, the restrictions were at the back of CHIP, and I believe there were two or three of them at this point. I'd like to give a shout out to the late Desmond, because he pointed that out to me, and we didn't have a separate restriction list here in the UK.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: Since REACH has come in, the sources of change — SVHC status, authorisation status, the REACH designations, so PBT/vPvB, endocrine disruptors (although those are now being moved into formal CLP), nanomaterials that are handled differently in terms of the safety data sheet — and now PFAS coming in, although technically that's under the PMT banner. All these things — you suddenly have to go: oh, hang on a minute, is there any of these in here? And then: is it registered for REACH? And are the uses registered for REACH — not just the substance, but my customer's uses? And you've got somebody who is literally a purchasing person going: how the hell am I supposed to keep track of all this? And then they get shouted at when somebody from regulatory affairs comes in and says, you shouldn't have bought that, we can't use it here.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: And that has these knock-on effects in the business. Regulatory affairs is no longer just about safety.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: There's this overlap with commerce now — the registration of uses, and the whole business about the extended safety data sheet. That was a complete misstep.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: With hindsight — look, Chris, I'll let you into a secret. I just turned 60 and I do not care anymore. I mean, I care deeply about the future of the chemical industry and supporting life, but I don't care about rubbish stuff anymore. And why register uses? It creates this enormous situation where you have to go: oh, is it registered? Even leaving aside the extended scenario we touched on earlier, do we really need this? Probably not. And in fact there is an argument for saying that when REACH came out, it was not supposed to be like it is now. The idea behind REACH was to take the chemicals that were on the market in 1981 in the then-European Economic Community and take them through the NONS (Notification of New Substances) process. And it was kind of supposed to be done in the next year or two, with only new entrants to the market needing to worry about generating data. And it hasn't worked out like that at all. So you have this enormous burden on the industry to keep the REACH dossiers up to date, to keep the data up to date. And that takes away from the bit that matters: do we have the data, and what does that mean for the safety data sheet and the label?

Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think — just a disclaimer — I'll probably have to say that I'm not agreeing with everything that Janet is saying.

Janet: No, no.

Chris: You know, that's fine, because we've all got our own views.

Janet: Yeah.

Chris: And you, Chris, wanted a perspective from somebody who remembers life before REACH.

Janet: Yeah. And that is me. It is too big. It is. Oh God, it just reminds me — do you know that wonderful video, Black or White by Michael Jackson, where he's playing his guitar really loud and I think Macaulay Culkin is playing his dad? And he comes in: it's too loud, it's too late, now go to bed. That's kind of how I feel about REACH as it's currently constituted. It's too far removed from what the good bits of it should be, which is to make sure that everybody who is putting stuff on the market in the EU has access to the most up-to-date safety information to produce good quality labels and good quality safety data sheets. In my mind, that is the good part of REACH.

Chris: Hmm. Yeah. It's a real challenge. In this podcast I've had various conversations and I hope to have more to collect these different viewpoints. One of the ones that jumps out at me now is the one I had with Peter Fisk, which is still one of the most popular. He was talking about the pivot that happened around 20 years ago when REACH was introduced — the principle of no data, no market. And that has turned on a massive data generation and collection exercise, which in itself is good to have more information on the properties of chemicals and how we use them. But it has created this march of continuous data generation and costs, and then also the march of scientific progress as we learn more about chemicals and guidance evolves to fill in gaps in our understanding or our ability to meet requirements.

And the one that jumps out at me, when you were talking about CLP and the workability of some of the proposals — I see that as well with, for instance, substances we place on the market that have a complex composition. So any oil product, or a fragrance-type substance, or a polymer, has a complex composition. But the rules in REACH will say that you need to look at every single chemical component within that composition in order to assess it. So instantly you get this explosion of the requirements, and nobody's really seriously sitting down and trying to come up with a pragmatic solution from a regulatory point of view. There have been initiatives in the past, but it's still very much an intractable challenge. There is a real need for people to sit down and look at that in the cold light of day and ask themselves: is this workable? Is this working?

Janet: Oh, and the people who would be tasked with that would be, for example, ECHA. I mean, they never met a chemical regulation they didn't like. One of the problems is the way that ECHA has been funded — they've been in limbo. Luckily, it looks like the proposals that have come out this week may actually stabilise their funding. But it's very much in their interests, and in the big consultancies' interests, to keep the gravy train going.

Chris: I do have to try to say something in defence of ECHA though — they are often caught in the middle, between a lot of pressure. And one thing I think is positive over the past couple of years has been ECHA's willingness to have more dialogue. I try to bridge some of these camps. But having said that, I think it's largely a systems issue in that the system that we have built is now running and no one's really in control of it.

Janet: Yeah. And that's kind of my point. The people who would be tasked with changing the system are inside the system and therefore can't — and are benefiting from it and can't see anything wrong — whereas the people outside the system in industry who are the victims of it, if they are younger, they don't know anything different. And it's my generation — Generation X. The boomer generation is just about retired now, but we are the people who remember what a healthy, functioning chemicals ecosystem looks like, and it isn't what we have now.

For example, the fact that the people who in the past would've been involved in research and development or QC have gone straight into regulatory affairs without having had a chance to actually make chemicals and understand how difficult it is to create a new substance. And then, once you've created a novel substance or a suite of them, how difficult it is to find the one that's going to be commercially applicable and that you can scale up. A lot of people have no idea how difficult it is to formulate and get the stability right, for example.

Chris: Yes.

Janet: There's a generation of chemists — and sometimes chemical engineers, but mainly chemists — whose brains have been diverted from the actual work that the industry should be doing, which is finding things that work and finding better ways to make existing chemicals more safely. Instead, they've been pushed into: let's manage this paperwork. And that's not good.

Chris: Yeah.

Janet: It's not good for anybody.

Chris: Yeah. That's something that Peter Fisk said as well — that the regulation has actually put a dampener on innovation and our ability to get the new chemicals we need, because it's a lot more expensive to bring chemicals to market. And also possibly that people are focusing more on managing the existing than developing the new.

Janet: Yet at the same time, one of the things I've noticed is that because of things like SVHC and authorisation status, it is pushing people away from high-hazard but very well understood, well-characterised chemicals with very good protocols for managing them safely, and pushing them towards novel alternatives that may look safer, but actually we have no data on. And that's not necessarily a safe position to be in. I think a lot of people misunderstand that we like hazardous chemicals because it's the hazards that make them useful. Nine times out of ten —

Chris: Well, yeah, they often go hand in hand, don't they?

Janet: The functionality is intrinsically hazardous. So the question shouldn't be: how can we get rid of all these nasty, hazardous chemicals? The question should be: how can we handle chemicals that are hazardous in the best way possible? Because frankly, offshoring it overseas just moves the problem to areas that are less concerned about human health and less concerned about environmental safety.

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

Janet: Out of REACH, quite literally.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, it is really alarming what's happening to the industry in Europe. On the economic side, you're hearing all the time that sites are being closed. I get the sense the UK has been particularly hard hit recently. Do you have some examples of that?

Janet: There have been closures in the Netherlands — the Dutch government's concerned. Dow is closing EU and UK sites. All sorts going on. It's like a perfect storm almost, because we've got a financial crisis and a weakened industry. We must not forget that we need chemicals — we need hazardous chemicals — we need to keep our water clean. That is absolutely primary. There is no point, in my view, in having a National Health Service if you don't have clean water. That is the fundamental for health: clean water, dealing with your sewage, and dealing with your rubbish.

Chris: Yes. So, I maybe can draw this together as we're exploring it — because you and I know each other quite well, so I think we can have a conversation where we don't always agree on everything. Because my own career has kind of evolved out of the REACH regulation, and in the course of that I've learned a lot about chemicals and in particular what's going on in the environment with chemicals. There is a social and economic aspect to that that we can't get away from, and a philosophical aspect. When you talk about the historical way of managing chemicals, there's been a very occupational focus to that — trying to make sure that people don't drink bleach under the counter, and things like that. But with some of the newer developments, where people are being exposed to chemicals via their environment, far away from where something is being made on an industrial site — those are the kinds of things that I think we are learning more and more about, and that REACH is acting on, rather than some of these purely occupational and industrial settings. I don't know if you have any reflections on that.

Janet: No, I mean, you're quite right, Chris. For one thing, there are far, far more chemical products on the market than when I was a girl. Far more. There are far more fragrance products and far more products filled with biocides. This push towards reducing energy use is actually quite dangerous in my view, because it means that people are saying: oh, well, you can wash your really filthy laundry in cooler water and just use a biocide and everything will be fine. No — we've got to use biocides really carefully. They're really important to us and we need a big range of them to avoid resistance and things like that, because they're super useful. And there's marketing from companies who are selling room fragrance products, cleaning products, all that kind of thing, so people are being exposed to the same chemical in multiple fragrance products.

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: Reed diffusers — when did they come in? They didn't exist back in the day. I think there was maybe one or two air freshener sprays on the market when I was a child, and that was it. We did not have scented candles. We had bubble baths, but there weren't that many on the market. So the number of chemicals on the market and the potential for the consumer to be affected by them — you're quite right. The question is: who should be responsible for that? Is it down to the individual consumer to take control over the chemicals that they — and especially their children — are exposed to?

Chris: Mm-hmm.

Janet: Is it down to industry to go: you know what, it might not be sensible to put out quite so many fragrance products? Or indeed — and this is where it gets really interesting — BPR. It's so difficult. We're now at the stage where in some product types, basically only a small number of biocidal actives remain approved. So there's been a narrowing of the biocides market, and we're now seeing an increase in the number of people who are sensitised to isothiazolinones being triggered by that sensitivity.

Chris: Mm.

Janet: We're in a bit of a perfect storm where people are reacting badly to chemicals, or being exposed to them a lot more, for cultural reasons — being able to buy more products and liking them. And also the changes in the formulations.

Chris: Yes. It is complex, isn't it? And I'm getting from you that your position on things is actually quite nuanced — that ultimately it comes down to: are the people who are in a position to take responsibility actually doing the responsible thing, or are they just doing whatever they like and passing the consequences down the chain?

Janet: Yes. You're quite right, Chris. And it is that sense of: just because you can doesn't mean you should. That applies equally to us as consumers buying products. It applies to the regulators in what they decide can be on the market. And it also applies to industry: are we doing the right thing? Is this product genuinely required? Is it sensible to allow helium to be used in balloons, for example? It's not quite on the edge of running out, but it's quite finite — and it's used in medical instruments and scientific instruments. Does it make sense to go and get helium balloons because it's somebody's birthday and then release them and have them come down into the hedgerows, where we find them on fences, or cows eating them, and we curse when we do? But there are no easy answers in all of this.

Chris: No.

Janet: We need to take responsibility for where we are in the supply chain, don't we?

Chris: Yes.

Janet: And generally, most chemical businesses — and this is one reason I love the industry so much — most chemical businesses are trying to provide benefit to consumers. At least the UK-based and EU-based ones are doing things because they help people: they keep people alive because we're making pharmaceuticals or intermediates, or we're making chlorine to keep our water clean, or we're making fertilisers or pesticides to protect the food supply.

Chris: Hmm.

Janet: Or we are making dye stuffs that go into medical use, like staining on your slides for microscopes, which is still required.

Chris: Well, I mean, I guess they're serving market needs, aren't they? And the market needs are always changing, but there are sometimes things that the market can buy that can have a detrimental impact elsewhere.

Janet: Absolutely. And why should people who need certain chemicals for what you might call a serious use be prevented from accessing that commercially, because there's some craze on TikTok to do something with it?

Chris: Oh, yeah. Well, that's it. Social media is running amok everywhere, and it's no different in our space. I notice there's a risk that we descend into completely polarised, TikTok-esque tribalism about chemicals, and I would really hope that we don't go there, because all the forces at work are pushing people into those camps.

Janet: Yeah, it's almost like: if you have concerns about the COVID vaccine, that makes you an anti-vaxxer and therefore anti-chemicals. No. You can have genuine concerns about things without being anti-science. Putting people in boxes and calling them names ultimately serves no purpose at all.

Chris: Yeah. If I might bring up another example — somebody, if they wanted to, could probably try to put you in a box, Janet. But one thing I noticed from some things you've said in the past is when you've talked about plastic and plastic pollution — that upsets you quite a bit, the whole issue of plastic pollution.

Janet: It does. One of the things I feel very strongly about, from my environmental background, is this: there's all this stuff about CO2 and we must go for net zero and all the rest. Well, the thing is, the geological record tells us about CO2 levels in the past and how much higher they've been — how much larger your trees will grow, or your tomatoes, if you increase CO2. That's why they have tomato greenhouses next to power stations — they pump the CO2 in and you get bigger, brighter, juicier tomatoes. And there's this focus on that to the detriment of things that are — on the basis of some very dodgy models, and the deeper you go into it, unfortunately they really are quite dodgy — in theory going to cause us problems in 50 or 100 years' time or whatever. And yet you have a problem now, a massive problem now, with ocean plastic and plastic on land that isn't being dealt with properly, that we actually can do something about.

To me, that is one of the aspects of pollution that we can act on. Why the hell aren't we doing something about it? Because pollution is when you've got something that's not going to break down for hundreds of years. That's an issue.

Chris: Hmm. Yeah. And this is a challenge. You brought up the discussion around climate change and the debate there as well. I think in the end a lot of this comes down to people's worldviews — whether you see the human race as: we're here to thrive and we should look after the environment in the course of that, versus we shouldn't leave any mark on the environment and there are things happening now that are changing it. And that's triggering a big debate at the moment, though it's not really out in the open. I feel that's a cause of a lot of disagreement on lots of issues. But we're getting too philosophical, I think.

Janet: I think you're right. Ideas are the most important thing in a lot of ways, because your attitude towards things is everything. And I'm glad you mentioned the concept of stewardship — that's really important. That's what this is all about: while we are here, because we're only here for a short time, are we looking after our family, our friends, the wider community? It ripples out from us as individuals. Are we looking after our environment as best we can? Are we going to — in the words of a late farming friend of mine — leave the place a little better than we found it?

Chris: Yeah, that's it, isn't it? I feel we're only just starting on that side of things in the public discourse. But anyway, Janet, I think that is a good place for us to stop our discussion. And I really appreciate speaking with you today. I know that I won't agree with everything that you say, but I think you hold views that a lot of people hold, and then there are other people who hold different views. So the only way that we're going to understand each other better is by having conversations. And so hopefully the people who are listening have enjoyed this one. And normally when I wrap up, I have two questions. So: what's the big goal that you're working towards right now, Janet?

Janet: Do you mean personally or professionally?

Chris: Can be either.

Janet: It is to make sure that I outlive my mother, who's in a care home, so that I can continue to look after her and make sure that she passes from this world safely. That's my big goal at the moment. And probably similar — looking after my husband and looking after the family.

Chris: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. One thing that I think is clear from your life and your career has been that you do have a deep sense of service to others.

Janet: Oh, thank you, Chris. What's your second question then?

Chris: Second question is: for somebody starting out in their career today, what's one piece of advice that you would give them?

Janet: Oh, that's a good one. Do the very best job that you can. It doesn't matter whether it is at work or at home — try your best. Be professional about things. It's really important: do the best you can with the information that you have, and there is always room for improvement. There is always room for questioning. There is always room for growth.

Chris: Very, very good advice. Thank you, Janet. That's been a really, really good conversation. Thank you. And thank you everybody who's been listening — your time is really precious, so I'm so grateful you've decided to spend it with us. If you've enjoyed this, please share it with your colleagues, and we'll have more discussions like this on Chemical Journeys in the future. Thanks a lot. Take care, and thank you again, Janet.

Janet: Thank you, Chris.