Development of pragmatic exposure-control concentrations based on packaging regulation risk phrases

This paper relates United Kingdom and other national Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) for volatile organic substances to the Risk Phrases (RPs) which they are assigned under EEC Classification, Packaging and Labelling Directives. The OELs for organic volatiles assigned RP 20 ('harmful by inhalation'), RP 23 ('toxic by inhalation') and RP 26 ('very toxic by inhalation') fitted better to the cumulative log-normal distribution than to the cumulative normal distribution and the means for RPs 23 and 26 were not significantly different. The means for RP 20 and RP 23/26 were 100 mg m-3 (or 25 ppm) and 5 mg m-3 (or 1 ppm), respectively. In the absence of any relevant, specific information, it is suggested that these values may be useful as guidelines for pragmatic exposure-control concentrations (PECCs) for the control of exposure by inhalation in workplaces handling substances labelled with these RPs.