Industry representatives are meeting environmentalists at a special seminar in Manchester to discuss potentially dangerous substances as part of a government review.

Environmentalists are likely to call for bans on suspect chemicals, while the industry believes that informed consumers can assess the risks for themselves.

FoE's Mike Childs and industry spokewoman Jenny Ayland: "Increases in health problems"

Friends of the Earth spokesman Mike Childs said his organisation would be pressing the UK Government to "introduce a strategy that puts public health first".

"The government must ban chemicals that build up in the environment and in people's bodies, and must put in place strong incentives to replace hazardous substances with non-hazardous substances," he said.

Chemical Industries Association spokeswoman Jenny Ayland agreed there was a problem, but said it was largely isolated to chemicals approved before proper testing procedures had been introduced.

"The industry very much recognises that the requirements for testing of products are far greater now than they were, and that there is a level of public concern about chemicals that we find unacceptable," she said.

'Inadequate data'

But Ms Ayland argued that consumers are capable of judging the dangers of common hazardous chemicals.

"If you take a product like bleach, for example, it's a potentially an extremely toxic product if used incorrectly, but people make a risk judgement for themselves," she said.

Figures from the US indicate that only 12% of chemicals in regular domestic use have "adequate" data attached to them.

Mr Childs suggested that some commonly used chemicals were contributing to "huge increases" in public health problems, like testicular cancer. He also said the industry needs to adopt a much more "precautionary" approach to its products.

"It's very difficult to point to one particular cancer for one particular health effect, but we need to recognise that there are risks there and get rid of those chemicals," he said.

Ms Ayland said European legislation had failed and it was the chemical industry's hope that the Manchester seminar would help accelerate its own "risk assessment programme".

Mr Childs said Friends of the Earth would be working with the Unison health union and the Association for Public Health towards a strategy designed to "phase out" certain chemicals.