INTRODUCTION

The Italian chemical industry is the fourth largest in the European Union, after Germany, France and the UK, with some 12 per cent of the production of the EU 15 countries, hi addition to their use in the chemical industry itself, chemicals are widely used in many other Italian workplaces. According to the results of the Third European Survey of Working Conditions (2001), the percentage of workers who thought they were exposed to breathing in vapours fumes, dust or dangerous substances for all or a substantial part of their time at work was slightly less than that for the average for the EU as a whole (4.2 percent in Italy compared with 4.9 per cent average for the EU). Approximately 15 per cent of Italian respondents to the same survey thought themselves not well informed on chemical risks, compared with an average of around 10 per cent for the EU, while a far larger proportion (around 36 per cent) of Italian respondents thought they were either very well or fairly well informed about the risks of using materials handled at work (compared with an average of 38 per cent for the 15 EU states that participated in the same survey). However, these results need to be seen in the context of widespread concern about the quality and availability of information on chemical hazards, especially in relation to the small and medium sized enterprises where the majority of the Italian labour force work.

In 2003, when the focus for health...