To:
Environmental Protection Authority
[email protected]
Submission on:
Reform of Hazardous Substances Management under the HSNO
Act – Proposals for an EPA (Information) Notice for importers
and manufacturers of hazardous substances
Date: 4 May 2015
Submission from:
Mark Ross
Agcarm
City Chambers
Corner Johnston and Featherston Streets
PO Box 5069
Wellington 6145.
Phone: 04 499 4225
Email: [email protected]
Submission on the Reform of Hazardous Substances Management under the HSNO Act –
Proposals for an EPA (Information) Notice for importers and manufacturers of hazardous
substances
1. Introduction
1.1 Agcarm welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Hazardous Substances Management
under the HSNO Act – Proposals for an EPA (Information) Notice for importers and
manufacturers of hazardous substances.
1.2 Agcarm is supportive of the drive by the EPA for global harmonisation and thus making
regulatory requirements similar to those experienced internationally. As a general rule chemical
importers and manufacturers are usually involved in both Australia and New Zealand markets,
thus it makes sense to develop protocols that are consistent between the two countries.
1.3 Agcarm has used the submission form template for the bulk of its submission, with some key
points being highlighted in this summary.
2. Summary of Submission:
2.1 In submitting on the proposals, Agcarm has identified general support from members.
However, on some questions within the submission template, there are mixed responses. This
is reflective of the high number of responses from members to the proposals, with different
aspects of the EPA Notices being more pertinent to some businesses that others.
2.2 Given this, several issues are common to the majority of Agcarm businesses. As a summary of
key common issues Agcarm submits that:
i.
The EPA must ensure that commercially sensitive information supplied by industry,
such as annual quantities of imported substances, remains confidential. It is important
that the EPA clarifies to industry the criteria and level of confidentiality around the
proposed information requirements.
ii.
To ensure information provided remains relevant, the EPA needs to send a summary of
the submitted information to each business on an annual basis for confirmation, similar
to what the ACVM does periodically.
iii.
Proactive training and education needs to be provided via the EPA on the new
requirements, so that industries understand their obligations and that consistency
across businesses is ensured. This would also assist in improving compliance.
iv.
Consideration needs to be given to extending the 30 day timeline from the publication of
the initial EPA Notice. A longer timeframe of 2 to 4 months would allow businesses with
a large number of registered products to meet the required deadlines, and would also
take into consideration those businesses who may not be immediately aware of EPA
notifications.
v.
The EPA must assure industry that it has the necessary resources and internal systems
in place prior to finalising this proposal.
vi.
Further clarification is required as to how the requested quantities are reported, for
example, weight, volume, units and so on.
vii.
Until more detail is supplied by the EPA, industry is uncertain of business cost and
resource implications to enact the new requirements. As the costs could be reasonably
substantial, the EPA must redistribute this proposal prior to finalising. This will allow
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businesses to readjust budgets and staff resources where necessary, to ensure that
they can meet the required level of EPA compliance.
3. General Comment
Agcarm is aware that the proposed changes will require the EPA to dedicate considerable
resources to its implementation. In addition, the EPA will also need to have resources available to
process changes associated with the Hazardous Substances management reform, and any
accompanying work.
Based on member feedback it has been identified that the EPA is currently finding it difficult to
keep up with its primary workload. For example, the EPA cannot meet all Status of Substance
requests or deal with various information needs from industry.
Sufficient resources must be made available to the EPA. It is a Government decision to reform the
health and safety regime, so these changes should be funded by a consolidated fund and not
through additional industry cost recovery.
4. About Agcarm
Agcarm is the industry association for manufacturers and suppliers of crop protection and animal
health products. For further information and a full list of members, see www.agcarm.co.nz.
These products protect public health, improve animal welfare and help environmental management.
They:




Play a pivotal role in growing high yield, sustainable food and fibre products;
Help supply healthy, nutritional and affordable food;
Keep New Zealand’s agriculture, horticulture and forestry sectors internationally competitive.
Our members are committed to safety, innovation and product stewardship.
Page 3 of 9
SUBMISSION FORM
Reform of Hazardous Substances Management under the
HSNO Act – Proposals for an EPA (Information) Notice for
importers and manufacturers of hazardous substances
Please submit your comments to [email protected] on this form in Word document format
Submission on
Proposals for an EPA (Information) Notice for importers and manufacturers
of hazardous substances
Name of submitter
(or contact for joint
submission)
Mark Ross
Organisation name
Agcarm
Postal address
PO Box 5069, Wellington 6145
Telephone Number
Email
027 442 9965
[email protected]
Submissions will be publicly available
The EPA is likely to post all or parts of your submission on its website at www.epa.govt.nz. Making a
submission implies that you consent to such publication, unless you specify otherwise below.
The content of submissions may be subject to public release under the Official Information Act 1982
following requests to the EPA. Please clearly indicate if you have any objection to the release of any
information contained in your submission, and in particular, which part(s) you consider should be withheld,
together with the reason(s) for withholding the information. We will take into account all such objections
when responding to requests for copies and information on submissions to this document under the Official
Information Act 1982.
Privacy
The Privacy Act 1993 establishes certain principles with respect to the collection, use, and disclosure of
information about individuals by various agencies including the EPA. It governs access by individuals to
information about themselves held by agencies. Any personal information you supply in the course of making
a submission will be used only in conjunction with the matters covered by this document. Please clearly
indicate in your submission if you do not wish your name to be included in any summary of submissions that
the EPA may publish.
Confidentiality waiver/privacy: (tick if applicable)
☐
I would like my submission (or specified parts of my submission) to be kept confidential, and attach
my reasons for this consideration by the EPA.
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☐
I would like my submission reported anonymously (i.e. without my personal name attached) by the
EPA.
(Note: If the submitter is a company then full business contact details will be made publicly
available. If the submitter is a private individual, full contact details will not be made publicly
available.
Proposals and submission form
The EPA is seeking your views as interested parties on the proposals presented in the consultation
document Reform of Hazardous Substances Management under the HSNO Act: Proposals for an EPA
(Information) Notice for importers and manufacturers of hazardous substances.
The consultation document presents a number of proposals and poses a series of questions to help you
frame your comments. Your feedback is important as it will enable the EPA to make more informed decisions
on the content of the proposed notices. Please take this opportunity to have your say.
Please use this form to submit your written comments and send it to [email protected] (in
Word document format) no later than 5.00 p.m. 28 April 2015.
The submission form brings together all of the proposals and questions asked throughout the consultation
document in table format. Page references are provided to help you locate the relevant discussion as
necessary.
There are a number of questions in the document. Please consider them all, as they each contribute to the
proposed information requirements to be prescribed in the proposed EPA (Information) Notice.
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Question 1
Do you consider that the right parties are being required to provide information to the
EPA under the proposed notice? If not, please indicate why and what alternative
you suggest.
Pg 10
Yes – principally support that information is being requested from the correct parties.
Two additional comments that questioned the provisions of information were received:
 Natural persons/individuals should also be required to provide information under the
proposed notice, as they may also import products that the EPA may wish to
communicate.
 The requirements for all HSNO importers, and importer and manufacturers to conform
to provide information, has proven with the implementation of the HSNO Act to be
impractical. When this Act commenced ERMA at that time was swamped with Notices
of Transfer and applications. These NOTS covered paints, inks, cosmetics, cleaners,
pesticides, animal remedies, and chemicals. These proved impossible to process and
the lack of compliance as reported in paragraph 18 reflects this. To meet
implementation deadlines ERMA at that time created wide Classification of classes to
allow this vast array of compounds to be brought into the Act. This arises because the
Biocide definition includes into HSNO this vast array of relativity harmless substances.
Indeed many Food and Pharmaceutical that are exempt are more harmful. These
definitions used in New Zealand are wider than in any comparable country, so that
comparisons with systems in other countries are not valid. Also, a vast array of
substances such as animal remedies and pesticides are already covered by other Acts
leading a massive duplication of effort within government. There are also a large
number of substances that are imported into containment and hence exempt from
HSNO.
The key to good management is to concentrate on the substances that create
significant hazards not controlled elsewhere, and to manage these carefully.
On this basis, a level of Hazard should be defined in consultation with industry where
notification to the EPA is required. Penalties for non-compliance should be such that
parties are careful to ensure they comply with this requirement. Substances covered by
other Acts, such as the ACVM, and substances imported into containment should be
exempt.
Question 2
Do you consider that the information proposed is sufficient for the EPA to adequately
identify and communicate with HS importers and manufacturers?
Pg 11
Yes, overall support that the information is sufficient for the EPA. However, one member
disagreed based on the EPA not having the resources to process the required information.
Other general comments received, included:
 It may also be beneficial to identify which specific categories of hazardous substances
that importers/manufacturers trade, e.g. veterinary medicines, pesticides and so on.
This could enable more targeted reporting requirements and/or communication to
specific groups.
 The EPA will still not be able to identify the importers and manufacturers that operate
outside the regulatory requirements.
 To ensure that information remains relevant the onus needs to be on the EPA to send a
summary of the submitted information to each business on an annual basis for
confirmation, similar to what the ACVM does periodically.
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Question 3
Do you consider that the additional information proposed through the proposed
amended EPA (Information) Notice appropriate to assist the EPA differentiate HS
importers and manufacturers on the basis of their potential risk to the community and
environment?
Pg 13
Mixed responses received, with a strong theme specifying that the EPA must clarify its criteria
and level of confidentiality around the information supplied.
Further comments and questions are summarised as follows:
 Annual volumes are commercially sensitive – how will the EPA ensure that this
information will remain confidential? For example, consideration to requests under the
Official Information Act need to be clarified.
 Support for providing annual quantities of high risk product would only be under special
circumstances, such as a threat of bioterriosm relating to certain products.
 For overseas manufacturers who are also not importers, consideration needs to be
given to adding a “Manufactured and Imported” category, so that only substances
marketed in New Zealand are required to be included in the annual quantities report.
 Clarification is requested as to why importers are viewed as a potential risk, as risk
should only be applied to the products imported. There is disagreement that the quantity
of any substance imported is important in assessing potential risk represented by the
importer, as large importers may have more resources, systems and procedures in
place to reduce risk than some small to medium sized importers.
 Clarification is requested as to who will be responsible for reporting imports of
chemicals to the EPA? Will this be the manufacturer or the brokers/chemical importers
that supply chemicals to the manufacturers?
 The threshold should be set so that information is only required on hazardous
substances that merit control.
Specific feedback was received from one member. This is provided as below:
1. “HSNO approval numbers that cover all the hazardous substances that they import or
manufacture”
 HSNO Approval Numbers for transferred or Part V approved products are more
specific than are Group Standard numbers. Even so, they are not a normal part of
inventory management numbers recorded against commercial products and they do
not serve any useful purpose to industry, other than as a reference on labels, SDS
and Haznotes.
 The information requested, i.e. HSNO approval numbers, are a poor indicator of an
importer or manufacturer’s risk profile. This assumes that the risk we are talking
about here is the risk of non-compliance with HSNO controls. To illustrate, not every
company who manufactures a glyphosate product under one of the old transfer
approvals poses the same risk of non-compliance.
 It is difficult to see what useful purpose these numbers will serve to EPA? They
identify singular or groups of substances that have been approved by way of
transfer or Part V application. It would perhaps be better to nominate products of
concern that either contain a specific chemical or are under a specific HSNO class
that raises concerns.
2. “Annual quantity of the substances that they import or manufacture under each HSNO
approval number”
 Although this may be useful to the EPA in terms of prioritising reassessments based
on which approvals are actually being used, it is a poor measure of a company’s
Page 7 of 9


Question 4
likelihood of compliance with HSNO. In fact, the inverse is likely true, with larger
companies being more aware of and more compliant with HSNO.
Products that are classified under a Group Standard will deliver a return that could
involve many very different products. The number would therefore be of limited
value or meaningless. This proposal can only be properly considered and
commented on when the revised group standards are in place.
Quantities for substances with an individual approval could be provided.
What compliance issues do you think importers and manufacturers will have if they
are required to provide HS approval numbers and the annual quantities of their higher
risk imports and manufactures, at the HSNO approval number level?
Pg 13
A number of issues are raised by Agcarm for consideration:
 Specific education will be needed on the additional requirement for approval numbers to
ensure suppliers who source imported ingredients are fully conversant with the HSNO
requirements for compliant SDS.
 There will be a large amount of non-compliance and increased costs for industry to
track and record the vast array of substances.
 A single veterinary medicine group may encompass numerous individual trade name
products, potentially with multiple pack sizes and collating data will be time-consuming.
In addition, products may be presented in different forms within the group standard, i.e.
liquid or solid. The EPA will need to specify how the requested quantities will be
reported, i.e. weight, volume, units etc. This may require a ‘drilling down’ to trade name
products within the HSNO approval.
 It is important that all industries understand their obligations and that the EPA ensures
consistency across businesses, so that a level playing field is in effect.

It is important that the Information Technology system(s) can cope with the extra line of
data requirements.
Question 5
What costs do you expect your business to incur in delivering the information
proposed in the initial EPA (Information) Notice?
Pg 14
The majority of feedback indicated that overall costs should not be extreme and were as yet
unknown. Extra resource would be required initially to implement the new requirements, and
this could come at a high cost.
Based on the final EPA criteria, further work would need to be carried out on the actual costs to
a business to comply with the new requirements.
Question 6
What, if any, difficulties do you foresee resulting from the time provided to deliver the
information and from the timing of the issue of the initial EPA (Information) Notice?
Pg 14
Concerns are raised with the timeframe of 30 days being too short. A timeframe between 2 to 4
months would be more realistic. An extended timeframe is not viewed as having negative
impacts on the EPA.
The assumption that all businesses will know the instance EPA publishes the notice is not
realistic and the 30 days would disadvantage some businesses. In addition, some businesses
have a large number of registered products and to process them all would take a longer time
period than 30 days.
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Question 7
Are you able to quantify the costs to your business of complying with the proposed
additional information in the amended EPA (Information) Notice, and if so what do
you estimate the annual costs to be?
Pg 14
No – not at this stage.
___________________________________________________________________________
Any other comments?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
General comments:

As supply chain information may be considered commercially sensitive, importers of
hazardous substances utilising an online web portal for reporting, would expect a
degree of confidentiality.

Sufficient time is required to implement the new requirements, with 30 days not viewed
as sufficient.

An improvement in compliance is required – this could be managed through proactive
training and education programmes.

Does the EPA plan to distinguish between imports of raw materials that end up
manufactured into products destined for export versus those for the New Zealand
market? Are the companies going to need to specify that information as well as a split
between New Zealand versus export and will there be any differential costs?

Questions are raised as to whether this proposal can manage all hazardous substances
and new organisms. It would be worth considering an approach that concentrates on
substances that create high risk, and then build compliance and systems that manage
these risks. For example, supporting identified substances by SDS that are immediately
available on websites or the products.

Exemptions should be made for substances imported and manufactured in
containment.

If this is another level of compliance being forced onto businesses it should apply to all
industries who import hazardous substances, without exemption. An example is the
food industry, who add hazardous substances such as preservatives to food products.
These substances are exempt from requirements, yet if used in pesticides they aren’t. If
a preservative is purchased from a food ingredient supplier they don’t provide an MSDS
or follow any of the most basic requirements because they are exempt, despite some of
their substances having significant hazards. This seems counter-intuitive and while it
makes sense that foods should be exempt, it is unclear why substances used in food
preparation are also exempt..

Whilst it is reasonable to expect the EPA to have a handle on what chemical products
are coming into the country, use of HSNO Approval Numbers is of questionable value to
any party. It would make more sense to identify areas of potential concern and work on
developing a reporting system that industry can readily implement using current
inventory management tools.
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