A/42/427
English
Page 223
environmental issues, for example, or joint use of pollution control or waste treatment facilities.
5. Increase Capacity to Deal with Industrial Hazards
65. Chemical products have greatly improved health and life expectancies; increased agricultural production; raised comfort, convenience, and the general quality of life; and expanded economic opportunities. The chemical industry is also one of the most dynamic sectors in most countries, including many developing ones. Yet this industry, together with its products, can have a particularly severe impact on the environment. I has given rise to a host of new problems both of product and process pollution. It continues to generate an increasingly wider rang of products and wastes whose effects, especially long-term ones, on human health and the environment are not precisely known. Major accidents have taken place, and the safety record of the industry has been challenged in recent years.
66. In a world more and more dependent on chemical products and highly complex large-scale technologies, accidents with catastrophic consequences are likely to increase. Some of the heavy metals and non-metallic minerals, much as asbestos, also pose serious hazards to health and the environment. Various hazardous products and processes are already built into current systems of production and the technological structure of contemporary society, and it will be a long time before these can be replaced with less dangerous, inherently safer technologies and systems. Some highly toxic chemicals that are known to cause cancer and birth defect and have long-term genetic effects are already in the environment in significant concentrations, and may take decades to be diffused.
5.1 Chemicals
67. Chemicals represent about 10 per cent of total world trade in terms of value.[1] Some 70,000-80,000 chemicals are now on the market and hence in the environment.[2] The figure is only an infomed estimate because no complete inventory has been done. Some 1,000. 2,000 new chemicals enter the commercial market each year, many without adequate prior testing or evaluation of effects.
68. According to a U.S. National Research Council sample of 65.72% chemicals in common use. data required for complete health hazard evaluations were available for only 10 per cent of pesticides and 18 per cent of drugs. No toxicity data existed for nearly 80 er cent of the chemicals used in commercial products and processes inventoried under the Toxic Substances Control Act.[3] This situation is now beginning to change as governments move gradually from a system of post market testing to one of pre-market testing of all new chemicals.
69. By 1986, more than 500 chemicals and chemical products had been banned altogether or had their uses severely restricted in the country of origin.[4] In addition, an unknown number of chemicals are withdrawn from clearance processes every year in
- ↑ OECD. Economic Aspect of International Chemicals Control (Paris: 1983).
- ↑ The Conservation Foundation, 'Chemicals Policy in the Global Environment', paper prepared for WCED. 1986.
- ↑ National Research Council, Toxicity Testing (Washington. DC: National Academy Press. 1984).
- ↑ See 'Consolidated List of Products Whose Consumption and/or Sale Have Been Banned, Withdrawn, Severely Restricted or Not Approved by Governments'. compiled by the United Nations. 1st revised edition. DIESA/WP/1. 1986.
