City of Cambridge Adopts Recommendations for a Municipal Health and Safety Policy on Nanomaterials

Posted on August 2, 2008 by Lynn L. Bergeson
On July 28, 2008, the City Council of Cambridge, Massachusetts voted to accept a set of recommendations for a municipal health and safety policy on nanomaterials. The recommendations were set forth in a report prepared by the Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD) and the Cambridge Nanomaterials Advisory Committee (CNAC). Cambridge now becomes the second city in the United States -- Berkeley, California is the other -- to have taken municipal action on nanomaterials.

The Berkeley City Council approved an ordinance in December 2006 that imposed a reporting obligation on facilities manufacturing or using nanomaterials. Shortly thereafter, the Cambridge City Council directed the City Manager to examine the Berkeley ordinance and recommend an appropriate municipal ordinance for Cambridge. The City Manager convened the CNAC and charged it with developing recommendations for oversight of local nanotechnology activities to protect human health. CNAC proceeded to develop a number of recommendations, all of which were endorsed by CPHD and have now been accepted by the City Council.

The recommendations call for Cambridge to take the following steps:

  • Establish an inventory of facilities that manufacture, process, handle, or store engineered nanoscale materials;
  • Offer technical assistance to help firms and institutions evaluate their existing health and safety plans;
  • Offer up-to-date health information to residents on products containing nanomaterials;
  • Track rapidly changing developments in research;
  • Track the evolving status of regulations and best practices concerning engineered nanoscale materials; and
  • Report back to the City Council every other year on the changing regulatory and safety landscape.
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City of Berkeley Issues Manufactured Nanoscale Material Reporting Guidance

Posted on May 10, 2007 by Lynn L. Bergeson
The Toxics Management Division (TMD) in the City of Berkeley’s Planning and Development Department has issued guidance on the nanoparticle municipal ordinance that the Berkeley City Council adopted on December 12, 2006. Under the ordinance, facilities that manufacture or use “manufactured nanoparticles” must submit to the TMD “a separate written disclosure of the current toxicology of the materials reported, to the extent known, and how the facility will safely handle, monitor, contain, dispose, track inventory, prevent releases and mitigate such materials.” The term “manufactured nanoparticles” is defined to mean particles “with one axis less than 100 nanometers in length.” The TMD guidance makes clear that facility reports covering the period June 1, 2007 -- June 2, 2008, are due by June 1, 2007, and must include, among other things, toxicological and ecological information about the nanoscale material and information about the potential exposure pathways and likelihood of exposure via those pathways.
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