Welcome, introduction and summary of activities since the ECETOC / Environment Agency persistence workshop (2007)

Jason Snape

Brixham Environmental Laboratory, AstraZeneca, Devon, UK

In 2007, ECETOC and the Environment Agency (EA) of England and Wales co-hosted a workshop on “Biodegradation and Persistence” at Holmes Chapel in the United Kingdom. Attendees, from academia, regulatory agencies and industry discussed the challenges and uncertainty faced with persistency assessments at the screening and confirmatory testing level. This presentation summarised the key conclusions and recommendations made during the 2007 workshop and summarised some of the activities that have been progressed since. It also highlighted where new issues or areas of uncertainty have come to light that were then discussed over the next two days. The presentation ended by setting the scene for the next two days of the workshop and providing the challenge for the workshop attendees. In setting the scene, it was emphasised that the output of the workshop would be disseminated as a workshop report and ultimately summarised in a journal publication to ensure that any critical research needs be disseminated.