ABSTRACT
As the year 2000 approaches, and chemists continue to synthesize an increasing number of chemicals of ever growing complexity, there is a requirement to be able to control the environmental effects of these chemicals. This number of xenobiotics is dwarfed by the number of natural substances which have now been identified. Chemical Abstracts now include data from a few basic physico-chemical details, through to methods of identification, synthesis, including patents, use, means of disposal and in a minority of cases numerous abstracts on environmental effects.
