Organic Chemicals Emitted from Technosphere Articles (ChEmiTecs) was a research programme funded by the Swedish EPA which ran during the years 2008-2013. The goal of the programme was to improve the understanding of mechanisms, magnitude and implications of emissions of organic substances from technosphere articles. It was also aimed at supporting the development of Swedish and EU management programmes to minimise risks from harmful substances. ChEmiTecs has been the first research programme to assess, on the National scale, the magnitude of the problem of emissions of chemicals in materials and articles. The results now being published from the research programme are still of great interest both from a research- and from a policy perspective: For instance that even when accounting for article lifetime, normally more than 99 % of the added chemical additives remain in the products at the end-of-life, which means that the majority of the substances will enter the waste and recycling streams where they may be eliminated if the products are incinerated or re-circulated into new materials and products. Still, as the accumulated amount of additives is so large, the total molecular release to air of plastic and rubber additives from the total stock of articles in Sweden in the use phase during one year has been estimated to be in the order of 500 tonnes.