Contaminant from industrial facility

Abandoned contamination sites include old garbage dumps and industrial production residues, contaminants from industrial facilities, areas in the vicinity of smoke stacks and discharge pipes, the concomitant contaminations and consequences of two world wars, military installations of the past and present, leaking wastewater lines, and buildings that were constructed with materials that have adverse effects on human health. 

Other heavy metals are also toxic, but fortunately are less widespread and are present in smaller amounts. Mine tailings (waste rock remaining after the valuable minerals have been removed) and waste material from processing plants are major sources of such metals. Many major rivers and lakes have sources of metal contamination from industries whose processes were developed and facilities were built before control of waste was recognized as a major problem. 

Over 80% of industrial wastes, much of which can be classified as hazardous, are disposed of in landfills. Many chemicals enter the environment directly as a result of accidents, spills, or leakage from industrial facilities and waste disposal sites. In the past, contaminated wastes were buried, burned, or chemically treated in place. These treatments are costly, have limited effectiveness, and are difficult to regulate. Landfill and in situ fixation do not destroy waste, and landfilling only changes the place of residence delaying future liability. Contamination of the environment has placed many of our vulnerable resources (e.g., groundwater, wet lands, fisheries, and agricultural lands) at risk. 

In any industrial facility, from offices to factories and laboratories, spills happen and create a variety of risks to workers. Inside a plant, spills result in chemicals on the floor, in the air, or on the workers themselves. When releases occur outside the plant (e.g., chemical releases from tank cars or trucks, the spread of noxious fumes from an internal spill), the potential for harm extends far beyond the facility, particularly with major catastrophes such as the Bhopal chemical release, the Exxon Valdez oil spill. New York s Love Canal, and dioxin-contaminated Times Beach in Missouri, have led several federal departments and agencies to enact protective regulations. These protections are aimed at protecting a much broader range of people, property, and the environment than most regulations administered by OSHA. 

Another classification of remediation technologies describes where the action is taking place. Ex situ methods are those applied to excavated soil and in situ processes are those applied to the soil in its original location. On-site techniques are those that take place on the contaminated site they can be either ex situ or in situ. Off-site processes treat the excavated soil in fixed industrial facilities, away from the contaminated site. 

Pentachlorophenol was found at high concentrations in all samples of sediments, waters, and biota collected near industrial facilities that used PCP as a wood preservative (Niimi and Cho 1983 Oikari and Kukkonen 1988) (Table 23.3). Fish can bioconcentrate PCP from water up to 10,000 times (Fox and Joshi 1984). However, similar concentrations were measured in blue mussel, Mytilus edulis (Folke and Birklund 1986), and softshell clam, Mya arenaria (Butte et al. 1985), from the vicinity of PCP-contaminated wastewater discharges as well as from more distant collection sites. Thus, PCP bioaccumulation in marine bivalve molluscs does not appear to be dose related. 

You may be exposed to hexachlorobutadiene by breathing contaminated air, eating contaminated food, drinking contaminated water, or by direct skin contact with this chemical. People working in the industrial facilities where hexachlorobutadiene is formed or used may be exposed. Concentrations found in outside air were 2-3 parts hexachlorobutadiene per trillion parts of air (ppt). Levels were much higher in or near industrial facilities where hexachlorobutadiene is formed or used. One survey detected air concentrations ranging from 22 to 43,000 ppt in a production facility. No information is available on how many workers are potentially exposed to hexachlorobutadiene. 

The CRS process is a commercially available closed-loop technology that is designed to separate hydrocarbon contaminants from soil without the use of surfactants or other additives. According to the vendor, this technology can be used to remediate petroleum production facilities, refineries, and other industrial sites including airports, military bases, tank farms, fuel storage and transportation terminals, and waste sites. 

The joint U.S./Russian expedition to Siberia s Angara and Yenisey Rivers detected synthetic contaminants in water and sediment samples from industrial regions and wilderness areas. On-site analysis using sensitive instrumentation revealed radionuclides, heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds. The results indicate that the nuclear production facility near Krasnoyarsk on the Yenisey River has introduced radioactive contamination far downstream and is a probable source of previously detected radioactivity in the Yenisey estuary at its outlet into the Kara Sea. 

Inhalation of 1,1 -dichloroethane in ambient or workplace air is generally the main route of human exposure to the compound. Estimates of populations potentially exposed to 1,1-dichloroethane in workplace environments range from 715 to 1,957 workers (NIOSH 1976, 1984). Inhalation of ambient air and ingestion of contaminated drinking water may also be important routes of exposure for populations living near industrial facilities and hazardous waste sites. 

Modern industry practice can be extremely effective in limiting lead emissions from recycling facilities. Facility emissions have been a cause of historic concern, with speculation that increased use of lead-acid batteries in electric and/or hybrid electric vehicles might result in unacceptable levels of lead contamination. For example. Lave et al. [23] estimated that emissions to water and air associated with primary lead production, secondary lead production, and battery prodnction were 4, 2, and 1%, respectively, of the total amount of lead processed. In contrast, Socolow and Thomas [24] estimated that secondary smelting and refining were associated with system losses of up to only 0.01% of material processed. 

Aggregation of fine particulate solids also takes place in liquids. In environmental control, the removal of particulate solids from liquid process effiuents is of great importance. As for gas/solid separations, when the size of the solids diminishes and reaches the micron or submicron (nano) range, the mass of individual particles becomes so small that they remain in suspension and carmot be removed by setding. Because of the fineness, membranes would be required to retain particles on a diaphragm, which is uneconomical for the cleaning of large volumes of contaminated liquids from industrial plants or waste-water treatment facilities. 

A central aspect of pollution control technology is the treatment of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste products from industrial production. The wide variety of the hazardous wastes to be treated with chemical-physical (CP) methods ranges from relatively harmless substances to highly dangerous environmental contaminants this is also reflected in the design of the facility. 

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