8. Access to, quality and quantity of information required by ordinance

This chapter provides an overview of access to data regarding chemicals management and its infrastructure, and analyses the use of information pertaining to the reduction of risk posed by chemicals at the national and local levels. It demonstrates that the classification, registration, notification and emission control of pesticides, industrial chemicals, consumer chemicals and waste chemicals is required by ordinance; activities involving such chemicals are conditional upon obtainment of appropriate licences; the issue of their oversight and supervision is resolved; and employees and the public are required to be informed of such activities, or at least this information is available to them.

It is mandatory to evaluate the effects of pesticides, and certain industrial and consumer chemicals under local conditions; to assess the risk they pose to human health and the environment; to formulate risk control programmes with respect to such chemicals; and to provide medical services in case of an accident. Also, persons concerned must have access to data regarding all this. Furthermore, it can be said that the information of the public is currently sporadic; although the HTIS provides information continuously 24 hours a day, the public does not take advantage of this opportunity, probably because it does not understand fully the meaning of this information, due to deficiencies in education.

Types and sources of data are presented in a separate sub-chapter; the Profile also notes who may access this data, and how. It concludes that most of the data is accessible only to members of the professional community – registers and other sources of data are not, or not readily accessible to the public.

It is unfortunate that the scope of data collected on a nation-wide basis is not adequate (it is done only with respect to sales of pesticides [broken down according to products, complete with value and mass figures], poisonings, occupational diseases/poisonings, accidents), and the nation-wide dissemination of information is only done in a few areas (approval of pesticides, approval of substances for extermination (e.g. rodenticides), register of dangerous chemicals).

The chapter notes that international literature – books, journals, primarily in libraries – is readily accessible; there are a number of databases in the country that cater to the information needs of specific groups.

A number of possibilities – data, databases – are available for the purpose of organising a system of information exchange within the country.

No national exchange system exists with respect to any group of dangerous chemicals for information regarding all life-cycle phases of chemicals, how individual life-cycle phases are managed, and with what degrees of success. There are numerous cases where a given piece of information never leaves the sector that the given ministry oversees, and the flow of information is usually only one-way.

A similar problem is the fact that information coming into the country from an international organisation frequently never makes it past the Hungarian contact point of the given organisation. This usually happens because difficulties – caused by inadequate funding – of translating the given piece of information into Hungarian prevent the contact point from relaying the information to affected parties in sectors under the supervision of its own ministry, and the inter-sectorial exchange of information is not even considered a goal.

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