Despite a number of legal acts that regulate emissions and occurrence of hazardous substances in water bodies, several groups of priority hazardous substances, can still be found in the environment and are still emitted. While industrial sources have a solid framework which regulates the emissions of hazardous substances, the majority of small scale emitters of wastewaters (households, enterprises and service providers and municipal entities) are so far weakly regulated and controlled. For several hazardous substances, these small scale emitters are responsible for the majority of the pollution load. Urban areas are in many cases emission hotspots.

Polluted wastewaters and storm water, coming from uses of products and materials containing hazardous substances, end up in municipal wastewater treatment facilities which in many cases are unable to effectively treat this type of pollution. This means that with traditional enforcement techniques (permitting, supervision, inspection) the set policy goals are impossible to reach, innovative measures are urgently needed.

At the same time, it was found that municipalities often have possibilities to go further than national and international regulations in safe-guarding their local environments from hazardous substances. Public procurement, awareness raising and promoting voluntary measures are tools that municipalities can use.

The project has worked locally in partner municipalities and identified and addressed small scale emitters by various means, adapted to each specific target group. Municipal entities themselves have exercised substance reduction measures at their own premises. Private small scale businesses and households, have been approached to be motivated for voluntary commitments for less hazardous substances by the expert partners and by cooperation with municipal authorities. Within the project partner municipalities have produced Chemicals Action Plans that will guide their future work with reducing emissions of hazardous substances from enterprises, households and their own entities.

These actions have not only aimed at decreasing emissions to the environment but also reducing risks to the health of people living and working in the municipalities.

Since hazardous substance management in urban areas is a new issue for most municipalities, the development of actions has benefitted from a wider, transnational perspective. Municipalities have learnt from each other and ideas developed in one municipality has been applied in another. The results have been communicated to inspire also other municipalities to work with these problems, and it is discussed how this dissemination to other municipalities can be further promoted, for example by developing a "road map for reducing chemical risks in municipalities".