Clean Up Of Chemical Waste
Chemical spills are major problems that haunt the environment. Strict government regulation are trying help this problem, but governmental leaders face many challenges. Disposal of harmful chemicals is often difficult and costly. Since chemical waste has destroyed the environment, steps are being taken to prevent further pollution, Like the Yucca mountain project.
A local based pharmaceutical company named Novo Nordisk released its 1999 environmental report. The company, which strives to keep from contaminating the environment, confessed to two separate accidents for the year. A North Carolina plant was fined from the United States Department of Agriculture 1,000 dollars. Due to the fact that hydrochloric acid was disposed of in the public sewage system. New management has taken action to insure this does not happen again. Also at the Gentofte site in Denmark wastewater with the E- Coli bacteria was drained into the public sewage system from a leaky heater exchanger. The incident was reported to the local authorities and cleaned up quickly.
A local company offered to donate expired chemicals to local schools. The chemicals have expired to which they can be used in schools for experiments and related activities. The companies prefer to donate the chemicals because it keeps them from the costly action of disposing of them properly. For example Novo Nordisk in Clayton, North Carolina has a program in which they donate hydrochloric acid and other expired chemicals to Clayton High School. A chemistry teacher at North Johnston High School was unaware that companies could donate their expired chemicals. Her comment of the quality of the expired chemicals was positive. "Expired chemicals would be fine to use for experiments and help me out a lot due to the small budget I am allowed each year for chemicals". A representative from Novo Nordisk stated that a program could easily be established if schools would show interest in the program.
Certain disasters stick out in the minds of many people . Chernobyl was a nuclear plant in Ukraine that ended up being the worst nuclear leak in history. The media reported that, "On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s number four reactor exploded, spewing a cloud of radioactive material across a portion of Europe in the world's worst civilian nuclear reactor disaster". Officials estimate that about thirty people were killed immediately and more than fifteen thousand people died in the emergency clean up afterwards.
"Nuclear Disasters: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island - CNN IReport." CNN IReport. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. .
Nathan Rosillo, a key product developer at Chem-Tech Corporation finds himself in the middle of an exceedingly complex ethical dilemma (Pg. 156). He is the moral agent (Pg. 156) of the company who needs to decide if he wants to protect his beloved Dutch Valley River from the waste materials that can be dumped into it after the loosened requirements of the regulatory agencies. The new lubricant product developed by Nathan and his team is seen by his company supervisor and plant manager as key to reviving the financial fortunes of a cash strapped Chem-Tech. The cost savings arising from less need to reduce and recycle the waste from the new product seem to resonate well with the management’s profit-maximizing view (Pg. 167), and also allow them to stay in compliance with the loosened environmental standards. Nathan has the following 3 choices:
Countless engineering disasters have occurred in this world, many civilians lost their lives due to corrupted constructions. The most fatal and deadly engineering disaster that took place in our history was the Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl catastrophe was a nuclear setback that happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in on April 26, 1986. It is seen as the most recognizable terrible nuclear power plant cataclysm ever. A nuclear crisis in one of the reactors caused a fire that sent a cluster of radioactive consequence that on the long run spread all over Europe.
Hopefully, with accurate analysis and innovation, my research will teach the world of its past so this disaster doesn’t occur in the future. B - Summary of Evidence Chernobyl (chrn byl) is an uninhibited city in north Ukraine, near the Belarus boundary, on the Pripyat River. Ten miles to the north, in the town of Pripyat, is the Chernobyl nuclear powerstation, site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster in history ("Chernobyl", Columbia Encyclopedia). To specify, on April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in Ukraine, injuring human immune systems and the genetic structure of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. Nearly 7 tons of irradiated reactor fuel was released into the environment—roughly 340 million curies.
On January 9th, 2014, it was reported that a chemical spill has occurred from a storage tank owned by Freedom Industries. The spill occurred on the banks of Elk River in West Virginia, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without tap water. The company first reported that 7500 gallons of the chemicals had spilled into the river through a one-inch whole but had found that two weeks later, there was an estimated 10000 gallons of the toxic chemical in the river. The chemicals released include 4-methylcyclohexane (MCHM) and PPH. Methylcyclohexane is a chemical that is used in coal to reduce the amount of ash it produces(Field & Catherine, 2014). The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection are still calculating the exact amount of how much of the chemicals were spilled.
The Chesapeake Bay is polluted with agricultural waste. We see things like 1.5 billion pounds of chicken waste that no one wants to take responsibility for. Ignoring standards, a waterway was tested for E. coli; the standard is 125 FCU/100ml of water. Yet this waterway’s level was at 48392 FCU/100ml. An industry that will go to great lengths to make sure that Congress doesn’t impose sanction against them.
...r more than a hundred thousand years. (Lindsay, 2002) The Chernobyl Accident in 1986 which has not taken the right safety measurement by the power plants operator caused the nuclear power plant to release radiation. There were more than 30 people found dead in this accident impute to radiation exposure. (WNA, 2012; U.S.NRC, 2011)
"The tops are leaping off the reactor lip" this was the first warning which the control room received before the destructive explosion in Chernobyl that occurred at 1:23 AM local time. Twenty three minute after the warning in the morning of 26 April 1989, the reactor exploded. The Chernobyl nuclear accident was an unexpected catastrophe that can happen in the history of producing nuclear power. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defined a nuclear accident as an accident that includes any activities that lead to the release of radioactive material and causes significant consequences. The location of Chernobyl city is in the north of Ukraine near the Belarus border. That nuclear accident happened when in reactor number 4 in the Chernobyl nuclear power in the Soviet Union exploded. Because of that extreme explosion, the radioactive emissions dispensed into the environment and caused immediate deaths, illnesses and many health problems. World Health Association (2013) reports that during the accident, one person died immediately and another one died in the hospital due to the harmful injuries he received. Health World Organization (WHO) (2006) also reports that a few weeks after the disaster 28 people died because of the Acute Radiation Sickness(ARS). The Chernobyl nuclear accident is one of the major disasters in the history of nuclear power which had many serious effects on humans and the environment.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
Ec.europa.eu. 2014. Chemical Accidents (Seveso II) - Prevention, Preparedness and Response - Environment - European Commission. [online] Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/seveso/ [Accessed: 14 Mar 2014].
... should be used to reduce the risk of injury to people and the environment. Gasoline should be stored in an approved container and lids should be secured on paint cans and stored in an appropriate storage container. All containers with chemicals should be properly labeled and identified in case of emergency. All chemicals should be disposed of properly and taken to the appropriate recycle or disposal facility.
...der for this to happen, regulation rules and enforcement need to be more rigid and scrupulous. The first step would be to continuously monitor the chemical levels in the surrounding groundwater and soil to ensure they are absolutely below hazardous. To reduce leakage, liners (layered clay and plastic sheets) should be utilized. Next, the policies need to be tighter to certify that there is no landfill with leaking toxins and that there is “corrective action for any potential leakages from waste sites” (Propex).
On April26, 1986, the nuclear power plant was exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine. At 1:23 AM, while everyone were sleeping, Reactor #4 exploded, and 40 hours later, all the city residence were forcefully moved to other cities, and they never return to their home. The Chernobyl disaster is ranked the worst nuclear accident. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was ran by the Soviet Union central nuclear energy corporation. (International Atomic Energy Agency-IAEA, 2005)
Efforts to improve the standard of living for humans--through the control of nature and the development of new products--have also resulted in the pollution, or contamination, of the environment. Much of the world's air, water, and land is now partially poisoned by chemical wastes. Some places have become uninhabitable. This pollution exposes people all around the globe to new risks from disease. Many species of plants and animals have become endangered or are now extinct. As a result of these developments, governments have passed laws to limit or reverse the threat of environmental pollution.
Policy is needed to regulate which course of action should be taken and how it should be implemented. Because of this, many plans and policies revolving around the management of solid waste have been put in place. Sometimes however, a particular policy can have its shortfalls, potentially resulting in its negative aspects outweighing the positive ones. According to the Conference Board of Canada Report, “Canadians dispose of more municipal solid waste per capita than any other country” (2013). Solid waste management in particular, involves many aspects, ranging from packaging waste, food waste, etc. (White & Franke 1999), hence, the following analysis revolves around household and commercial waste – referred to as Municipal Solid Waste (White & Franke. 1999) – in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Municipal waste is a major health and environmental concern as it contributes to numerous problems like habitat destruction, surface groundwater pollution, and other forms of air, soil, and water contamination. Waste disposal methods like incineration create toxic substances, and landfills emit methane, which contributes to global warming. According to the Zero Waste Objective Report, “The impact of climate change and the increasing awareness of the role of “waste” and “wasting” in the production of greenhouse gas emissions is a constant environmental pressure… (2009). This leads to an increasing limitation of government to prevent and control the volume and toxicity of products in the waste stream and a growing need to shift responsibility to the product manufacturer.