ABSTRACT
Although it is tempting to simply list the ever-growing litany of environmental issues attributed to industrial production and consumption, the emphasis from a developmental perspective should be on those materials or processes that are likely to cause synergistic or cumulative impacts. These are the issues that have ecological rather than the more narrowly described toxicological repercussions. For example, we know that there are approximately 100,000 commercial chemicals in production and use today (OECD 2000). Many of these are used in small quantities and in limited applications where they may be toxic to the workforce in the industrial facility in which they are used but have little or no anticipated ecological impact.
