Urgent regulatory action is needed on nano-scale materials widely used in industry, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has concluded.

The materials have so far shown no evidence of harm to people or the environment, the commission found.
But, it warned, there was a ""major gap"" in research and it would not recommend clothes with nanoscale silver.
It is thought around 600 products - such as cosmetics, sunscreen and clothing - contain the particles.
The report focuses not on the tiny machines or electronic devices that nanotechnology has promised, but instead on the nano-sized materials that are making it into industry and consumer products.
At issue is the fact that at such tiny scales, materials behave differently than they do when they comprise larger objects.
Professor Sir John Lawton, the commission's chairman, cited fibers made from carbon nanotubes as an example. ""Carbon nanofibers are fundamentally different from graphite,"" he said.
""That makes their behavior in the environment and in the body very hard to predict.""
However, the report stresses that the view of nanomaterials as a single category defined only by their size is limiting because different nanomaterials present markedly different potential risks. ""It is not the particle size or mode of production of a material that should concern us, but its functionality,"" the report states.
Woodrow Wilson Center The government has faced calls before from independent groups for stringent industry controls and further research into the environmental risks of nanomaterials.
But, the commission noted, the potential benefits of nanomaterials meant that the rise in their use had far outstripped the knowledge of the risks they might pose.
A recent survey for the Washington DC-based Woodrow Wilson Center found more than 600 consumer products that listed nanomaterials among their ingredients, and the number of patents for nanomaterials' use was in the thousands annually.
But the materials' novelty meant that long-term effects could not yet be studied, and their limited use to date precluded studies on their build-up in the environment.
The commission's study found no evidence of harm to people or the environment to date, but warned that tests must be standardized in order to ensure future monitoring was effective.
The commission added that it saw no reason to implement a blanket ban or moratorium on the development and implementation of nanomaterials, because of the societal benefits they represented, for example, to medicine and the renewable energy industry.
Instead, it urged co-operative, international action to establish tests for their dangers and regulatory oversight. They also suggested changing the industrial reporting of the use of nanomaterials from voluntary to mandatory, with an industry ""checklist"" to flag up the products that posed the highest potential risk.
""The report's bottom line is clear; the safe use of novel materials requires innovative solutions to minimising risks,"" said Andrew Maynard, chief adviser to the emerging nanotechnologies project at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
""But despite repeated warnings, the establishment continues to lag behind emerging technologies.
(Source: BBC)