US City to Set Safety Standards for Nanoparticles

Posted 13 December 2006 @ 10:34 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Leaders of the famed college town of Berkeley in California voted to monitor manufactured nanoparticles as potentially hazardous materials.

"It appeared governments were afraid of being perceived as anti-business. Since this was seen as the newest goose about to lay the golden egg no one wanted to set standards for safety."

The ordinance calls on businesses within the city limits to report whether they use nanoparticles and, if so, to provide details regarding storage, handling, tracking, disposal and emergency plans for accidental releases.

Similar regulation was recommended in Britain by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2004 in a report titled "Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties," Al-Hadithy said.

"We thought Britain was going to be first but the government denied the proposal," Al-Hadithy told AP. "These are world renowned scientific bodies and to have bureaucrats say they are not going to do it is shocking."

Detailed regulations will be crafted in Berkeley after the ordinance becomes law at the end of the week. Letters asking for accountings of nanoparticles will be sent to local businesses in January.

"It is unlikely we will find much, given the small industrial sector in Berkeley," Al-Hadithy said. "But the fact is this is not only an ordinance for Berkeley. It clearly appeared to us someone needed to break the ice and start a regulation and maybe others would follow."

There are nanotechnology laboratories at the University of California at Berkeley and at a newly-built Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the hills above the college. Both facilities are exempted from local regulation because they are federally funded and regulated.

"We are not really that scared of laboratories," Al-Hadithy said. "They use small quantities of material and have lots of scientists on board. Production facilities are our concern."

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory officials endorsed the ordinance, getting the city to amend it to call on elected political leaders to lobby for more money to pay for health and safety research.