One of 16 environmental quality objectives

A non-toxic environment is one of 16 environmental quality objectives adopted by the Swedish Parliament. The Swedish Chemicals Agency is the responsible agency for this objective. Environmental quality objectives define the aim of the environmental work, while interim targets indicate scope and time perspectives for concrete environmental measures. A progress report is to be submitted to the Parliament every year.

A Non-Toxic Environment - the environmental quality objective

"The environment must be free from man-made or extracted compounds and metals that represent a threat to human health or biological diversity."

The outcome within a generation for this environmental quality objective should include the following:

• The concentrations of substances that naturally occur in the environment are close to the background concentrations.
• The levels of foreign substances in the environment are close to zero and their impact on the ecosystems are negligible.
• All fish in the seas, lakes and watercourses in Sweden are fit for human consumption with regard to the contents of foreign substances. 
• Overall exposure in the working environment, the natural environment and the indoor environment to particularly dangerous substances is close to zero and, as regards other chemical substances, to levels that are not harmful to human health.
• Polluted areas have been investigated and cleaned up where necessary.