Transitioning to Australia’s New Inventory

On July 1, 2020, the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances (AICS) will become the Australian Inventory of Industrial Chemicals (AIIC). Major inventory revisions will be made available by Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS). AICIS is the new name for the Australian chemicals management scheme, in place of National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), effective July 1. Substances which are not in industrial use have been identified and consulted upon and will be removed from the Inventory as part of the migration.  Additionally, substances with conditions of use will be displayed differently in the new Inventory.

While the new Inventory will be published by AICIS on July 1, the team behind UL’s LOLI will be updating our chemical regulatory database ahead of time using the following principles. This means the Inventory will be available to clients in LOLI immediately at time of publication:

• Revisions will be made directly to the existing list in LOLI (List ID 620), which currently contains 40,558 records, including 200 records for entries which do not have CAS numbers.
• The list name will be changed to reflect the updated name of the Inventory. The new name will be Inventory – Australia – Inventory of Industrial Chemicals (AIIC).
• Substances which are only used outside of Australia’s definition of industrial will be removed (excluded uses include therapeutic, agricultural, veterinary or food use). The list of substances that likely will be deleted from the inventory is currently in LOLI as List ID 8186 with 1,688 records, based on the latest draft list from Australia. At time of posting, NICNAS has not made a final list of excluded substances available.
• 84 chemicals with conditions of use will become subject to either defined scope of assessment or condition of introduction or use. In LOLI, chemical data for these substances will be updated in List ID 620 to reflect this.

UL has been in contact with representatives of NICNAS regarding the timing and content of the updated inventory. The publication of the list of excluded substances is not expected until July (after the publication of the new inventory). This information has informed the principles above but should the list of excluded substances be available sooner our approach will be updated accordingly.