independently classify water-polluting chemical substances

If you or your company operate a facility that handles hazardous water-polluting chemical substances, you must independently classify the substances used into a water hazard class (WGK) and notify the German Environment Agency.

If you or your company operate a facility in which water-hazardous chemical substances are handled, you are obligated to independently evaluate all chemical substances that you use in your facilities and

• into one of the water hazard classes (WGK)
• or to be classified as non-hazardous to water.

You must then document this classification and submit it to the German Environment Agency (UBA).

Chemical substances can pose a hazard to water bodies. Therefore, they must be classified into water hazard classes according to their hazardousness:

• WGK 1: low hazard to waters (for example, acetic acid, sodium hydroxide solution, alcohol, or hydrogen peroxide)
• WGK 2: significantly hazardous to water (for example, heating oil, sodium hypochlorite, iodine)
• WGK 3: highly hazardous to water (for example, waste oil, chlorinated hydrocarbons, benzene)

Furthermore, substances can also be used as

• nwg: generally hazardous to water, as well as
• awg: generally hazardous to water (for example, liquid manure, fermentation substrates, or certain solid mixtures such as waste)

be classified.

You are exempt from this obligation if

• you use chemical substances whose hazard has already been assessed and the corresponding classification has been published in the Federal Gazette, or
• you consider the chemical substances, regardless of their hazardousness, as extremely hazardous to water (WGK 3) or
• you use chemical substances whose classification as non-hazardous to water or generally hazardous to water is already specified by the Ordinance on Facilities for Handling Substances Hazardous to Water (for example, food or liquid manure, farmyard manure, and silage).

If you have scientific findings at a later date that lead to a change in the published classification, you are obligated to document these in writing to the Federal Environment Agency without delay.

Note: Section IV 2.6 "Substances Hazardous to Water" at the German Environment Agency is responsible for the classification of substances into water hazard classes (WGK).

You can submit the classification into water hazard classes via online form or alternatively by e-mail or by post.

Note: Before classifying and documenting a new chemical substance, please check the German Environment Agency's Rigoletto substance database to see if the substance has already been published with a classification (individually or through a group classification).

Submit classification online:

• Go to the federal portal website verwaltung.bund.de and fill out the documentation form electronically there.
  • Note: For the online application, you need an electronic identity document, for example the online function of your ID card.
• Upload all necessary documents and submit the classification documentation.
• The German Environment Agency checks whether your classification documentation is complete and plausible. For this purpose, freely available substance information is also used. In addition, the German Environment Agency can take random samples from the documentation for which you must submit the bases for classification and test reports.
• Should any questions arise during the review that cannot be answered from the documents, the Federal Environment Agency will contact you. If necessary, a written hearing will be held to clarify the facts.
• The Federal Environment Agency makes the final classification decision. It will send you the notification in writing by post and by email.
• The Federal Environment Agency publishes the legally binding classification in the Federal Gazette and in the online database Rigoletto.

Alternatively, you can submit the classification by email or by post:

• Go to the website of the Federal Environment Agency or access the online database Rigoletto. Download „Documentation Form 1“.
• You can fill out the documentation form directly on the computer or print it out and complete it by hand.
• Sign the documentation form and send it either by email or by post to the Federal Environment Agency.
• The remaining process steps correspond to the online procedure.

There are no costs.

• Appeal. You can find detailed information on how to file an appeal in the notice.
• Administrative court lawsuit