In the last 50 years, mankind has created around 80,000 new chemicals. They are in use all around us – in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics and baby bottles to computers. Our 21st century society depends on them.

However, this reliance on chemicals comes at a price, as many chemicals have hazardous properties. The manufacture, storage, transport, application and use of chemicals in consumer products can result in their release into the environment, whether that be into rivers, the sea, soil, the atmosphere or the air in our homes. The presence of chemicals in air, water, food or in consumer products means that humans and wildlife can become exposed to them, such routes as by injestion, inhalation and absorbtion through the skin.

Some chemicals are particularly persistent (meaning they stick around in the environment for a long time and do not break down) and bioaccumulative (meaning they build-up in living things). Others are endocrine disrupting – meaning they interfere with hormone systems.

The costs to society of exposure to man-made hazardous chemicals are largely being ignored. Little research is being done into the causes of diseases and conditions in which chemicals are implicated. Allergies, asthma, behavioural problems diabetes, obesity and increases in various male reproductive problems, such as falling sperm counts, are all of great concern, but chemicals are rarely studied or considered to be the culprit. In WWF's view this is an oversight.

Over the last year, the EU has been debating a new law that aims to regulate the multi-billion pound chemical industry. By the end of 2006 this new law, known as REACH (Regulation, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), will be voted on for the final time.

WWF has been campaigning to ensure this law has the strength to protect future generations and wildlife, and does not allow 'business as usual' for hazardous man-made chemicals.