Documents disposal of harmful waste 16 results

"The chemical policies of the 1970s were limited by the assumptions that lie at their foundation and focused narrowly on only the most hazardous chemicals. The effective management of chemicals requires policies that focus on the entire body of chemicals and the production systems that make them. The future will require comprehensive chemicals policies that work within a systems framework to phase out the most hazardous chemicals, progressively transition away from the remaining chemicals of concern by substituting safer chemicals and technologies, and invest heavily in a new generation of safer and more sustainable chemicals."

To better understand hazardous waste remediation workers and their training needs, interviews were conducted with personnel (n=115) from 29 sites. Personnel included project managers, prime contractors, subcontractors, safety officers, and on-line workers. All of the prime contractors reported having an emergency response plan, 96% reported having a medical surveillance programme, and 89% reported having a site- specific health and safety plan. Reported inconsistencies in responses from respondents at the same site indicate possible gaps in training and communication. Almost all respondents had received the required 40 hours of off-site training, but 20% reported that hands-on field exercises were not included. Participation in the required 3 days of on-site training was reported by 66%. Lack of experience, the sporadic nature of hazardous waste site cleanup work, and high turnover present special challenges to the implementation of an effective health and safety training programme.

"The article critically reviews the importance of historical developments in the field of hazardous waste management and cleanup in the US, including waste already deposited at thousands of sites and waste being generated in day-to-day industrial operations. Government regulations for the protection of personnel at hazardous waste sites are outlined. The article considers issues of primary preventive strategies (e.g. air monitoring) and secondary preventive strategies (e.g. medical surveillance) and makes recommendations."

"Section 126(g) of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 mandated the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to establish a grant program for the training and education of hazardous waste operations and emergency response workers. This program, originally established as the Superfund Worker Training Program, has evolved into the Worker Education and Training Program (WETP) and is currently in its nineteenth year of successful operation. Beginning with eleven awardees in 1987, it currently supports eighteen awardees that include more than one hundred organizations nationally. The NIEHS WETP built upon the lessons learned from earlier worker health education and training programs to establish a national worker health education intervention that has demonstrated the capacity of and potential for public health excellence. The principles and practices established as the program's foundation in its first five years are detailed, providing a basis for understanding how the program was able to take an active supporting role in response to the national disasters on September 11, 2001. "

"Objective: While industrial sectors involving semiconductors, memory and storage technologies, display, optical and photonic technologies, energy, biomedical, and health sectors produce the most nanomaterial-containing products, nanotechnology is also used as an environmental technology to protect the environment through pollution prevention, treatment, and cleanup. This paper focuses on environmental cleanup and provides readers with a background and overview of current practice, research findings, societal issues, potential environment, health, and safety implications, and future directions for nanoremediation. We do not present an exhaustive review of chemistry/engineering methods of the technology but rather an introduction and summary of the application of nanotechnology in remediation. Nanoscale zero valent iron is discussed in more detail.
Data Sources: We searched Web of Science for research studies and accessed recent U.S. EPA and other publicly available reports that addressed the applications and implications associated with nanoremediation techniques. We also conducted personal interviews with practitioners about specific site remediations.
Data Synthesis: Information from 45 sites, a representative portion of the total projects underway, was aggregated to show nanomaterials used, type of pollutants cleaned up, and organization responsible for the site.
Conclusions Nanoremediation has the potential not only to reduce the overall costs of cleaning up large scale contaminated sites, but it also can reduce cleanup time, eliminate the need for treatment and disposal of contaminated soil, reduce some contaminant concentrations to near zero-all in situ. Proper evaluation of nanoremediation, particularly full-scale ecosystem wide studies, needs to be conducted to prevent any potential adverse environmental impacts."

"A pilot study tested the feasibility of conducting occupational health research in Bangladesh while examining asbestos-related diseases, work-related respiratory symptoms, and attitudes to occupational health and safety among a group of internal migrant shipbreakers.Data was collected in Bengali on clinical and work history, respiratory symptoms, and occupational health and safety practices. Postero-anterior chest x-rays were read by a B-reader. In 104 male shipbreakers, prevalence of asbestos-related disease was 12 percent, of which asbestosis accounted for six percent. Knowledge of asbestos and occupational health and safety measures were almost non-existent. The prevalence of asbestos-related diseases is low compared to studies in shipbuilders and repairers, but a risk underestimate could have resulted from challenges identified during study design and implementation including: a) industry non-cooperation and a culture of corruption, b) technological and language barriers, and c) a regional lack of physician knowledge and research on occupational diseases. How these challenges affected the study is discussed and recommendations are made."

"At the Point of Production, a compilation of contributions to New Solutions Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health Policy, locates workers' health and safety problems in the broad political economy. It argues that without a deep understanding of the social/political/economic context of particular industries or workplaces, we cannot fully grasp the process of recognition and control of industrial hazards. The contributors report on a series of case studies, all of which used the "point of production" framework to investigate particular problems or industries. The focus of the first section is on globalization, the impact of privatization on the health and safety of workers and communities in Brazil and Mexico. The next section addresses environmental issues: the unintended effects of environmental regulation on workers, the situation of hazardous waste workers and emergency responders, the implementation of toxics use reduction, and the role of workers in pollution prevention. In the third section the contributors explore the intersection of labor relations with gender relations at the point of production. A final chapter deals with some of the practical issues involved in conducting occupational health research in the contested terrain of the workplace. "