Toxic wastes are undesirable materials of all kinds that can cause hazards (eg inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin). Many of today's household products such as televisions, computers and phones contain toxic chemicals that can contaminate the air and contaminate the soil and water. Throwing such waste is a big public health issue.
Video Toxic waste
Classifying toxic substances
Toxic materials are toxic by-products as a result of industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, construction, automotives, laboratories, and hospitals that may contain heavy metals, radiation, harmful pathogens, or other toxins. Toxic waste has become more abundant since the industrial revolution, causing serious global health problems. Removing the waste has become more important with the addition of technological advances that contain toxic chemical components. Products such as cell phones, computers, televisions, and solar panels contain toxic chemicals that can harm the environment if not properly disposed to prevent air pollution and soil and water contamination. An ingredient is considered toxic when causing death or danger by being inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
Waste may contain chemicals, heavy metals, radiation, harmful pathogens, or other toxins. Even households produce hazardous waste from items such as batteries, used computer equipment, and residual paints or pesticides. Toxic materials can be man-made and others naturally occur in the environment. Not all harmful substances are considered toxic.
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has identified 11 key substances that pose a risk to human health:
- Arsenic: is used in making electrical circuits, as a pesticide material, and as a wood preservative. These are classified as carcinogens.
- Asbestos: is a material once used for building insulation, and some businesses still use this material to produce roofing and brake materials. Inhaling asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer and asbestosis.
- Cadmium: found in batteries and plastic. Can be inhaled through cigarette smoke, or digested when included as a pigment in the diet. Exposure causes lung damage, gastrointestinal irritation, and kidney disease.
- Chromium: is used as a brick layer for high-temperature industrial furnaces, as solid metal used to make steel, and on chrome plating, dyeing and pigment making, wood preservatives, and leather tanning. It is known to cause cancer, and prolonged exposure can cause chronic bronchitis and damage the lung tissue.
- Clinical waste: such as syringes and medicine bottles can spread harmful pathogens and microorganisms, leading to various diseases.
- Cyanide: toxins found in some pesticides and rodenticides. In large doses may cause paralysis, seizures, and respiratory distress.
- Lead: is found in batteries, paints, and ammunition. When ingested or inhaled can cause damage to the nervous system and reproduction, and kidneys.
- Mercury: is used for dental fillings and batteries. It is also used in the production of chlorine gas. Exposure can cause birth defects and kidney and brain damage
- PCB , or polychlorinated biphenyls, are used in many manufacturing processes, by the utility industry, and in paints and sealants. Damage can occur through exposure, affecting the nervous system, reproduction, and immune system, as well as the liver.
- POPs , persistent organic pollutants. They are found in chemicals and pesticides, and can cause neural and reproductive system defects. They can bioaccumulate in the food chain or survive in the environment and are moved with great distances through the atmosphere.
- Strong and alkaline acids used in manufacturing and industrial production. They can destroy tissues and cause internal damage to the body.
The most neglected toxic and hazardous wastes are household products in daily homes that are disposed of improperly like old batteries, pesticides, paint, and car oils. Toxic waste can be reactive, non-lit, and corrosive. In the United States, this waste is regulated under the Conservation and Rescue Resource Act (RCRA).
- Reactive waste is waste that can cause explosions when heated, mixed with water or compressed. They can release toxic gases into the air. They are unstable even under normal conditions. An example is the lithium-sulfur battery.
- The ignited waste has a flash point of less than 60 degrees Celsius. They are highly flammable and can cause a fire. Examples are solvents and waste oils.
- Corrosive waste is a liquid that can damage metal containers. This is an acid or base having a pH level of less than or equal to 2, or greater than or equal to 12.5. An example is the battery acid.
With the rise of technology around the world, there are more substances that are considered toxic and harmful to human health. Some of these technologies include cell phones and computers. They have been named e-waste or EEE, which stands for Electrical and Electronic Equipment. The term is also used for items such as refrigerators, toys, and washing machines. These items may contain toxic components in them that can decompose into our water system when disposed of. The reduction in the cost of these items has allowed these items to be distributed globally without any thought or consideration to manage the goods after they become ineffective or damaged.
In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state environmental agencies develop and enforce regulations on the storage, processing and disposal of hazardous waste. The EPA requires that toxic waste be handled with special precautions and disposed of at designated facilities throughout the country. Also, many cities in the US have a collection of days where toxic household waste is collected. Some materials that may not be received in regular landfills are ammunition, commercially generated waste, explosives/vibration-sensitive objects, syringes/syringes, medical waste, radioactive materials and smoke detectors.
Maps Toxic waste
Health disorders
Toxic waste often contains carcinogens, and this exposure by some routes, such as leakage or evaporation from storage, causes cancer to appear at increasing frequency in exposed individuals. For example, a group of polycythemia vera rare blood cancers were found in the vicinity of toxic waste dumps in northeastern Pennsylvania in 2008.
The Human & amp; The Ecological Risk Assessment Journal conducts research that focuses on the health of individuals living near the city's landfill to see if it is as dangerous as living near a dangerous landfill. They conducted a 7-year study that specifically tested 18 different types of cancer to see if participants had a higher level than those who did not live around the landfill. They conducted this research in western Massachusetts within a radius of 1 mile from the Regional Landfill of North Hampton.
People find these toxins buried in the ground, streams, in groundwater supplying drinking water, or in floods, just like what happened after Hurricane Katrina. Some toxins, such as mercury, persist in the environment and accumulate. As a result of bioaccumulation of mercury in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, predatory fish are a significant source of mercury in human and animal foods. Toxic waste. "National Geographic National Geographic, 2010. Web Apr 26, 2010.
Handling and disposal
One of the biggest problems with today's toxic ingredients is how to get rid of them properly. Before the enactment of modern environmental legislation (in the US, this was in the 1970s), it was legal to dispose waste into rivers, rivers and oceans, or to burrow it underground in landfills. The US Water Ordinance, enacted in 1972, and the RCRA, enacted in 1976, created a national program to regulate the handling and disposal of hazardous waste.
The agricultural industry uses more than 800,000 tons of pesticides worldwide every year that pollute the soil, and eventually infiltrate the ground water, which can contaminate the drinking water supply. The oceans can be polluted from rainwater runoff from these chemicals as well. Toxic waste in the form of petroleum oil can spill over into the ocean from pipeline leaks or large ships, but can also enter the oceans from everyday residents dumping automobile oil into the rain storm drain system. Disposal is the placement of waste into or on land. Disposal facilities are usually designed to permanently contain waste and prevent the release of harmful pollutants into the environment.
The most common hazardous waste disposal practices are placement in a landfill such as a final disposal site, surface loads, waste heap, land-keeping unit, or injection well. Land disposal is subject to the requirements under the EPA Disposal Land Restriction Program. The injection well is set under the Federal Underground Injection Control program.
Organic waste can be destroyed by incineration at high temperatures. However, if the waste contains heavy metals or radioactive isotopes, these must be separated and stored, as they can not be destroyed. The storage method will seek to paralyze toxic components of the waste, possibly through storage in a sealed container, inserted in a stable medium such as glass or cement mixture, or burial beneath a watertight clay cap. Waste transporters and waste facilities may charge fees; consequently, improper disposal methods can be used to avoid paying these costs. Where toxic waste handling is regulated, improper disposal of toxic waste can be subject to fines or imprisonment. Cemetery sites for toxic waste and other contaminated brownfield land can eventually be used as greenspace or redeveloped for commercial or industrial use.
US toxic waste regulatory history
RCRA regulates the generation, transportation, maintenance, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. The Toxic Substances Control Act, also ratified in 1976, authorizes the EPA to collect information on all new and existing chemicals, and to control any substance prescribed to cause unreasonable risks to public health or the environment. The Superfund Act, passed in 1980, created a clean-up program for abandoned or uncontrolled dumps.
There has been a long-running battle between community and environmental activists versus government and companies about how tight and fair the rules and laws are written and enacted. The battle began in North Carolina in late summer 1979, when the EPA TSCA regulations were being implemented. In North Carolina, PCB-contaminated oils are dribbled along rural Piedmont highways, creating the largest PCB spill in American history and a public health crisis that will result in generations to come. The PCB contaminated material was eventually collected and buried in a garbage dump in Warren County, but citizen opposition, including massive community demonstrations, uncovered the dangers of toxic waste, the misuse of the landfill was then used, and the EPA rules allowing landfills to be built on marginal sites, but politically acceptable.
Warren County residents argue that toxic waste landfill regulations are based on the fundamental assumption that the EPA's dry-grave TPA concept will contain toxic wastes. This assumption informs the placement of toxic waste and lightening waste against the regulations included in the Federal EPA List. For example, in 1978, the bottom of a toxic waste disposal site could be no closer than five feet from groundwater, but these and other regulations could be released. A waiver of the regulation of the distance between the base of toxic and groundwater disposal allows the base to be just above groundwater if the owner/operator of the facility can show to EPA regional administrators that leachate collection system can be installed and there will be no hydraulic connection between the landfill base and groundwater. Citizens argue that the waiver of placement rules is a discriminatory mechanism that facilitates a shift from scientific to political considerations of site decisions and that in the South this means discriminatory proliferation of hazardous waste management facilities in black and other minority communities. They also argue that the scientific consensus is that permanent detention can not be guaranteed. Because the resistance to the placement of PCB dumps in Warren County continues and research reveals that EPA's final waste dump site is failing, the EPA states on the Federal Register that all final landfills will eventually leak and should only be used as a temporary measure.
Years of research and empirical knowledge of the failure of the Warren County PCB landfill caused the Warren County residents to conclude that the EPA dry-tPA TPA design and regulation that governs the disposal of toxic and hazardous waste is not based on sound science and adequate technology. Warren County residents concluded also that the 1981 Wastewater Treaty Act in North Carolina is scientifically and constitutionally unacceptable for authorizing the placement of toxic, hazardous and nuclear waste facilities prior to the public hearing, preceding the local authorities over the determination of the facility footprint, and authorizing the use of force if necessary.
In the aftermath of the Warren County protest, in 1984, the Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments on the Conservation and Resource Recovery Act focused on waste minimization and gradually discharged hazardous waste from land and corrective action to release hazardous materials. Other measures included in the 1984 amendment include increased law enforcement authorities for the EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and comprehensive underground storage tank programs.
Toxic waste disposal continues to be a source of conflict in the US. Due to the hazards associated with handling and disposing of toxic wastes, communities often refuse to place toxic waste in landfills and other waste management facilities; however, determining where and how to dispose of waste is an important part of economic and environmental policy making.
The issue of handling toxic wastes has become a global problem as international trade has emerged from the increasing toxic by-products produced with transfers to less developed countries. In 1995, the UN Commission on Human Rights began paying attention to the unauthorized disposal of toxic waste and commissioned the Special Rapporteur to examine the human rights aspects of the matter (Commission Resolution 1995/81). In September 2011, the Human Rights Council decided to strengthen its mandate to include the entire life cycle of hazardous products from manufacturing to final destination (aka cradle to grave), as opposed to just movement and disposal of hazardous waste. The Special Rapporteur's title has been changed to "Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of environmentally friendly management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes." (Human Rights Council 18/11). The Human Rights Council has expanded the scope of its mandate as of September 2012 due to the dangerous implications of people advocating environmentally friendly practices regarding the generation, management, handling, distribution and disposal of hazardous and toxic materials for inclusion in protection issues environmental rights advocates.
Toxic waste mapping in the United States
TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) of the Special Information Services Division of the National Medical Library of the United States (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users explore data visually from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Inventory Program and Poison. TOXMAP is a resource funded by the US Federal Government. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET) and PubMed, and from other authoritative sources.
See also
- List of Superfund sites in the United States
- Pollution
- Radioactive waste
- Environmental remediation
- Agent Orange
- Red mud, a by-product of alumina production
- Environmental racism
References
External links
- Information about toxic waste from CDC
- TOXMAP: e-map Environmental Health from the US National Library of Medicine
- Argentinean legal toxic waste
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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