2.1 Background

2.1      Background

The national product registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are unique and very valuable sources of data concerning the downstream uses of chemical substances in products on the national markets.

SPIN – Substances in Preparations In the Nordic countries – is a database that contains “non-confidential” information on substances from each of the Nordic product register.

The intention behind the database SPIN is to make available to the public as much data as possible from the registers. Sometimes secrecy rules can then be an obstacle, something which here is overcome by aggregation of the data from each register. Thereby, the number of products within a certain use or industry category is increased. As a result more information on a greater number of chemical substances can be used e.g. for the purpose of exposure assessment. The information included is for example the number of products containing the substance, the annual tonnage, industrial categories and use categories, the annual tonnage within these categories and the presence or absence of the substance in consumer products.