The chemical industry: challenges and opportunities through the year 2000

Three major areas are discussed regarding future challenges and opportunities for the chemical industry: (1) product qualities, (2) the waste situation, and (3) monitoring needs in industry and the environment. It is stressed that there remains much to be done with respect to improving safety testing and assessment of chemicals and that our knowledge of the environmental behavior of existing chemicals is dismal. The currently rather unsatisfactory information transfer situation is highlighted. Regarding waste production, in principle, the chemical industry must develop and operate closed systems to the extent that is technically feasible. In the area of monitoring, a new generation of "key indicators" must be developed. These indicators will be symptom oriented and capable of reacting to and indicating the presence of biologically active agents of unknown nature or variety. They can thus detect unexpected changes in the environment and allow assessment of the biological relevance of emissions and effluents of unknown chemical compositions. Regarding exposure changes, a new analytical approach is suggested in the form of "Exposure-Trend-Analysis Systems" (ETAS), which optimize the detection of unexpected concentration trends in environmental matrices without focusing on preselected chemicals. It is suggested that the chemical industry can meet all reasonable demands for improving its performance in protecting the environment, provided that governments and the industry itself cooperate on an international level--beyond the European Common Market.