Question 1
There are two types of pollutants, a stock and fund pollutant. A stock pollutant is one for which the environment has a very little (if any) assimilative capacity. Once you emit the stock pollutant, it would not be absorbed by the environment because there is no a natural process by which a stock pollutant assimilates into the environment. For instance, manufacture which emits the plutonium as its waste product, the plutonium cannot be assimilated by the environment; as a result, the amount of this waste will be higher and keep remaining into the environment for a long time. This pollutant has a long half-life which means it needs a long period of time of a radioactive component to be deteriorated (plutonium half-life: over 100 million years to break it down) so that the level of a stock pollutant will increase over the time. Also, it has an impact for human health when people continuously are being exposure by this pollutant.
On the other hand, a fund pollutant is one for which the environment has an assimilative
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First, there is a ‘command and control’ approach which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets a pollution level through a standards approach and there will be a punishment or penalize if polluters do not meet the level of pollution controlled that is already regulated. Besides, EPA also sets a requirement on technology that manufactures use for production in order to control the pollution, called “Best Available Technology (BAT)”. In this context, polluters are required by law to install BAT to control pollution. However, this approach could not deliver the efficient level or cost effectiveness of pollution controlled because when every business whether small or big business installs BAT, it would impose high MCC for small businesses and low MCC for big businesses. Thus, it will create inequity between small and big
The U.S. has approximately 119,000 companies involved in the environmental technologies and services industry, which is a $782 billion market. Also, firms must offset new or additional emissions with emission reductions by a 5-to-1 ratio. This means any firm who increases their emissions output in one area by one ton must reduce their emissions output in another area by 5 tons (McKee, 1991). Finally, new emissions producing companies will have to start up with state-of-the-art equipment.
The classic command and control system of the Clean Air Act focuses on controlling pollution in the air to a minimum level. There are three types of standards within the command and control system, which include ambient, emission, and technology. Ambient standards regulate the pollution around a surrounding area of an environment. Emission standards regulate emissions level allowed. Technology standards require certain techniques, technologies, and practices to be used. (Command and Control)
This case focuses on corporate obstacles to pollution prevention. Pollution prevention can complex especially for large corporations. There are many different forms of pollution prevention including emissions control devices and incremental changes in existing technology. The author reviews the impact of emissions controlled devices, however the focus of the case study is on incremental changes in existing technology. Incremental changes include substituting one or two steps in a production process or relationship changes between production steps. One example of incremental changes that was provided by the author was eliminating chlorofluorocarbons and saving energy by replacing a refrigeration process with a heath exchanger that can exploit waste cooling from another part of the process. There are three critical decision-making stages for incremental changes; identifying a pollution prevention opportunity, finding a solution appropriate to that opportunity, and implementing that solution. The author discusses the three aspects of an organization (culture, ability to process information, and its politics) and how they impact the decision-making stages.
...en the application of both economic and legal means failed to solve the problem, the state administrative controls is on stage. By imposing barriers to entry the industry is one of the most common measures taken by government. When pollution is serious, the government will adopt a more stringent measures, including forced to shut down or relocate the site. However, similarly, this measure might not work properly in developing countries. For instance, considering China as an example, even the central administrative directly command the local government to dealing with cross-regional pollution problems, they will buck-passing each other because of their own benefits.
Pollution has always been a relevant issue in todays society and even worldwide. Some believe it ‘s natural and some believe its man made. The fact is that both are true but with today’s technology growing at such an alarming pace emissions have increased at an unnatural rate and this is what’s causing global warming to worsen. Because of this there’s only so much that environmentally friendly organizations/ advocates can do to contribute to the reduction of pollution. It’s a losing battle because they cannot keep up with the amount of pollution being emitted. But a new idea has ben introduced by the EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) called “Cap-and Trade”. This new program is believed
Until 10 years ago, air pollution was thought to be just an urban or local problem until it was discovered that the pollutants could move across continents and oceans. Air pollution is the fundamental factor that causes greenhouse gases, hence climate change and global warming. Air pollutants are the waste products generated from industrial and other processes. They usually come in gases, though aerosols (particles suspended in air, emitted as or formed by transformatio...
pollutant before materials are used, removed the pollutant after it is formed, or altered the
In old batteries, there is a toxic lead that is causing health problems for the Taiwan people who are disposing these batteries (Gay, 12). Space is becoming a landfill from the excess of space flights and the radioactive supplies from nuclear reactors, which could come to our atmosphere and explode (Gay, 13). When businesses run out of space to dump their toxic trash they go to poor nations because they do not have strict safety regulations (Gay, 31). The landfills on Earth are not the only place trash is getting put. The ocean is being trashed with plastic bags, soda can holders, and large fishnets, which are harming dolphins, turtles, sea lions, and others (Gay, 69). Military bases in the U.S have more hazardous waste and are responsible for contamination in soil and waters (Gay, 83). There are other hazards happening because we are throwing away so much stuff that companies have to remake all of those products. Incinerators are places where waste is burned to ashes and if we recycle these can go away. Incinerators cause sulfur dioxide, carbon m...
What is the socially optimum level of production keeping in mind the environment? How should it be achieved? It is at this point that the great economic minds of out time begin to take up arms. Michael Porter, a Professor of Business at the Harvard Business School claims that environmental regulation of businesses will actually give the businesses a competitive advantage over their counterparts in nations with less stringent regulation because it forces them to innovate. Porter claims that by changing their production processes, the businesses will actually lower their production costs (Porter, 97).
Air pollution according to the Wikipedia << is the introduction of particulates, biological materials, or other harmful materials into the Earth’s atmosphere, possibly causing disease, death to humans, damage to other living organisms such as food crops, or the natural or built environment>>. Therefore, human being should be aware of the facts that the environment and all living creatures are dying. They need to understand the importance of natural items, the nature, etc…
Pollution is so harmful to human beings. Polluted water can cause many kinds of diseases, such as diarrhea, enteritis, and so on. And sometimes the diseases even take man’s life. Dirty air or air-borne garbage causes stinging eyes and running nose. Pollutants are destructive. They will cause runs in stockings and crack rubber tires and they always eat away at stone and rust iron. Time and time again, there are serious accidents that polluted the air. For example, At 1986 there was a bad accident at a nuclear power station in Russia. A cloud of radiation crossed the whole Europe. It is said that 125,000 people died in Russia as a result of illnesses caused by that accident. In 1984 there was an accident at a factory in India and a dangerous cloud gas covered the town of Bhopal. Over 2,500 people were killed that night, and hundreds and thousands of people were injured. Many of the injured lost their sight, and it really dangerous, even in our imagination.
If many dangerous chemicals are released into the atmosphere, the chemicals dissolve the ozone layer and this causes ultraviolet radiation to directly hit the earth. Figure 2 below gives an overview of the ozone layer. Figure 2: Ozone Layer. Source: Tasos Gkionakis (2017). Eutrophication Eutrophication is a condition where high amounts of nitrogen is present in some pollutants gets developed on the sea surface and turns it into algae and this affects the fish and animal species.
...sues with environmental concerns with mining and smelting, the economic issue is one of them that tops the list. Something needs to be done to drive the cost of environmental control equipment down. Should this be how the equipment is manufactured differently, made more efficiently, or created with lower cost material.
Pollutants are the key elements of pollution, which are generally waste materials of dissimilar forms. Pollution disturbs our ecosystem and the balance of the environment. With innovation and development in our lives pollution has reached its peaks giving rise to global warming and human illness. When raw materials, water, energy and other resources are utilized more efficiently, when fewer harmful substances are substituted for hazardous ones, and when lethal substances are eliminated from the production process. Water pollution is also a major problem in the world because almost 60% of it is fish.
Regulations provide the baseline environmental standards that industry is required to follow. Without environmental regulations, industry would not be able to meet the same standards by themselves. Environmental regulations may not always be in the best interest of the industry due to their costly and sometimes prohibitive nature. In response to these concerns, the establishment of incentive programs increases the likelihood of industry complying with and potentially exceeding the minimum environmental standard. Incentive programs motivate industry to meet and exceed environmental standards by allowing them to benefit financially by aiming for higher than regulation