Lead dinitrate

PBT assessment

PBT assessment: overall result

PBT status:

PBT assessment does not apply

Justification:

The PBT and vPvB criteria of Annex XIII to the Regulation does not apply to inorganic substances.The assessment approach for Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) substances was established because of the possibility that some man-made chemicals may accumulate in parts of the environment, and whereby such an accumulation may cause unpredictable effects in the long term that may be very difficult to reverse.

These PBT criteria are not directly applicable to metals as it neglects various processes affecting the fate, bioavailability and toxicity of inorganic compounds. (partitioning, speciation, complexation, competition with other ions, adsorption, precipitation, dissolution etc.). A unit world model (UWM) was proposed as an alternative to the PBT criteria and has the potential to be used for the hazard assessment of both metal ions and organic chemicals. The primary advantage of the UWM approach for hazard assessment is that it goes beyond the individual consideration of persistence, bioaccumulation, and inherent toxicity by integrating them to give an overall expression of hazard in the form of a critical loading. In doing so, it circumvents the problem of the inherently infinite persistence of metals and, potentially, provides a consistent and more level playing field for assessing these diverse substances (Harvey et al., 2007). The UWM can also take into account the effect of speciation and water properties (pH, hardness etc.) on bioavailability and toxicity.