Dangerous industrial activities

Liability for Dangerous Industrial Activities and Damage to the Environment Where Do We Stand After the Council of Europe Convention and the Commission Green Paper ... 

HEAVY METALS A gi oup of metals which are sometimes toxic and can be dangerous in high concentrations. The main heavy metals covered by legislation are cadmium, lead, and mercury. Industrial activities such as smelting, rubbish burning, waste disposal and adding lead to petrol increase the amount of toxic heavy metals in the environment. 

One of the most important problems in the sphere of industrial activity is that attending high ambient temperature. Therefore, the search is on for substances that can increase the resistance of organisms to dangerous overheating. Experiments on white rats show that substance 103, called azomopine, has a protecting effect in different temperature regimes. 

MAJOR HAZARD An industrial activity involving certain dangerous substances which have the potential to give rise to serious injury or damage beyond the immediate vicinity of the workplace. 

DNA is subject to damage by electromagnetic radiation or reactive chemicals, many of which have been introduced into the environment as a by-product of industrial activity. Some chemicals may not be dangerous per se, but may be metabolised to products which are dangerous. There are three major classes of such chemicals07 . 

Many various types of industrial activities result in pollution of the atmosphere. The furnaces at the earlier mines were sources of pollution. Modern electrochemical industry brought other types of problems. Fluorine exhausted from aluminum factories has caused great damage in the vicinity. Some of these factories emit organic components that may be dangerous to health. Smoke from ferrosilicium, ferromanganese, and ferrochrome factories is really noticeable. Many factories which refine heavy metals spread polluting material. 

In 1982, the European Union s Council Directive 82/501/EEC on the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities, also known as the Seveso Directive, was adopted. The Directive was mostly designed to promote information flow and created the requirement that each Member State (i.e., each country belonging to the European Union) appoint a Competent Authority to oversee safety issues. The Seveso Directive was amended twice, following major accidents at the Union Carbide chemical factory in Bhopal, India in 1984 (a leak of methyl isocyanate caused thousands of deaths), and at the Sandoz chemical warehouse in Basel, Switzerland in 1986 (fire-fighting water contaminated with mercury, organophosphate pesticides and other chemicals caused massive pollution of the Rhine River and the death of hundreds of thousands of fish). Both amendments, broadened the scope of the Directive, in particular to include the storage of dangerous substances. 

The Seveso Directive covered all European Union Member States, and held them responsible for ensuring that the relevant national institutions do what is required for adequate risk management. The entire Directive was also driven by a concern for prevention, including those parts that relate to post-accident activities. For example, terms such as industrial activity, manufacturer, major accident, and dangerous substances were defined, the types of production, operations, and storage activities that are subject to regulation were described, and the dangers that are anticipated were noted. 

Arsenic is the most dangerous element emitted from various industrial activities in the Mae Moh complex. The biogeochemical cycle of As includes its migration in the air-water-sediment-soil-plant system. The averaged value of the As concentration... 

SI 1984/1902 implementing the so-called Seveso Directive (Council directive 82/501/EEC of 24 June 1982 on the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities) and now replaced by the Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH) Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/743) which in turn implement the Seveso 11 Directive (Council Directive 96/82/EC of 9 December 1996 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances, as amended by Directive 2003/105/EC). 

Even though the natural levels of heavy metals are well known (Table 11.1) those from aquatic ecosystems have significantly increased in the last decades simultaneously with the high development of industrial activities and urban developments. So, the necessity to develop analytical methods allows to detect and quantify extremely low levels of heavy metals in natural waters (which could be quiet dangerous for both aquatic biota and human health) that is strongly remarked. 

Large-scale chemical production is one of the most important industrial activities. Its products play key roles in the fields of human nutrition, health, quality of life, and welfare. Nevertheless many people regard chemical production as dangerous. Therefore, the term chemical safety plays an important role in the chemical industry and during the production process. In order to be more easily understood and defined the large field of chemical safety should be divided into three main areas ... 

In this connection it is also worth mentioning the so-called ozone holes —the local destruction of a centuries-old balance in the composition of the atmosphere resulting from the products of industrial activity (e.g., chlorofluorocarbons—freons) which create areas (holes) in the atmosphere that are transparent to short-wave UV radiations. These holes in the ozone layer are making the affected areas dangerous to live in because of the excess of UV radiation, which is harmful to life on earth. It is also probable that short wavelengths can cause undesirable mutations in hving organisms. 

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