ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, the number of synthetic chemicals in use has grown exponentially. There are over 84,000 different chemical substances registered with the US Environmental Protection Agency for commercial use (EPA 2014a). The EPA’s High Production Volume challenge program identified over 2,200 chemicals produced in or imported to the United States at rates of 1 million pounds or more per year (EPA 2013). Synthetic chemicals have a range of different commercial uses, but a few examples of products containing synthetic chemicals include pesticides, building materials, cleaning products, toys, cosmetics, fuels, medicines, and food packaging (Schwartz et al., 2008). The sale of these goods makes the production of synthetic chemicals a multi-trillion dollar industry; estimates suggest pesticides alone constitute a $40 billion world market (Grube et al., 2011).
