Preface

Abstract

In recent years much attention has been given to the hazards, actual and poten­tial, to man, wild life and the biosphere in general by the injection into the environment of ever-increasing quantities of man-made chemical substances. This is exemplified not only by increasing anxiety about pollution of air, land and waters by smoke and exhaust fumes, agricultural chemicals, oil, heavy metals and industrial effluents, of which specific incidents of gross pollution are reported in the press from time to time, but also by the very large number of publications on the subject now appearing in the scientific and technical literature. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is charged with the duty ‘to advise on matters. . . concerning the pollution of the environ­ment. . . and the future possibilities of danger to the environment’. In its second report the Royal Commission suggested the establishment of a ‘data bank’ on known correlations between chemical structure and environmental effect, no doubt with a view to anticipate ‘future possibilities of danger’. The views of the Royal Society on this suggestion were invited by the Chairman of the Royal Commission and on the recommendation of the British National Com­mittee for Problems of the Environment it was decided to hold a Discussion Meeting for the purpose of ventilating the idea of a data bank and also to promote an exchange of views about wider questions related to chemicals in the environment. The meeting took place on 27 April 1973; seven invited speakers presented contributions dealing with specific aspects, and each of their papers was dis­cussed from the floor. Their subject-matter is placed on record in the seven papers which follow, and we have appended a statement of the main conclusions reached as a result of the meeting. These conclusions have been endorsed by the National Committee and the Officers of the Society and transmitted to the Royal Commission.