Environmental and Health Effects Materials

Prior to the expansion of the scope of the program to include environmental and health effects materials, the primary focus of the Department s hazardous materials transportation regulatory program had been upon the properties of materials that pose substantial potential hazards to persons or property from acute exposures. Consequently, the program had been directed primarily towards controlling the handling of such materials in transportation. 

During the 1970s, however, various public and private organizations and environmental agencies urged the Department to consider establishing transportation controls to deal with materials which were not, or were only partially, regulated by the Department at that time. Additionally, several federal and 

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Expansion of the program s scope so as to include environmental and health effects materials... 

Dentistry. Mercury is used in dental amalgams for fillings in teeth (see Dental materials). Dental uses have accounted for 2—4% of total U.S. mercury consumption since 1980 and generally 3—6% before that time (3). Dental amalgams used to fill cavities in teeth are approximately 50% mercury by weight. Dental use of mercury can be expected to continue to decrease, in part because of more effective cavity prevention as well as development and increasing use of alternative dental materials such as plastics and ceramics, and increasing awareness of the environmental and health effects of mercury. 

The exact composition and proportion of these additives in a certain type of fluid depends on the intended use. Hydraulic fluids are compounded to conform to performance-based standards such as Military or ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) specifications. Some examples of Military specifications are shown in Table 3-2. Many different formulations can be compounded to conform to one performance standard. It should be noted that the variability among these products or even within products with the same trade names may confuse efforts to determine environmental and health effects of hydraulic fluids at hazardous waste landfills since hydraulic fluids that are currently used may or may not contain the same components present in old products of the same name. 

Nanocomposite materials used in energy harvesting in electronics can be managed carefully because they have many environmental and health effects. Nanomaterials can aggregate and interact with biochemical compounds. Nanomaterials can also penetrate membranes, which indicates that toxicologists should be involved in studying these nanoproducts. The Ufe cycle and chemical fate for the current and developed nanomaterials are not estabUshed yet therefore, environmental guidelines should be developed. 

Personnel. More than any other area, we are often asked "How many people has your corporation added due to TSCA " I don t know of anyone who has a concise answer to this question. Complicating the situation is the fact that the 1960 s and 1970 s saw a number of environmental and health laws go into effect the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Federal Water Pollution Control Act, TSCA, Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, to mention the major ones. This mixture of acts, with some similarities of purpose, developing within a time span of 10-15 years, has made a variety of similar demands. It is not easy at this point to attribute the addition of staff support personnel to an individual law such as TSCA. The same observation is applicable to all corporate resources which have felt the effects of TSCA however, in order to... 

Figure 21.12 Comparison of the diameter of lepiesentalive particles and the effective pore diameter of natural soil materials. (Reproduced with permission from V. H. Grassian, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Environmental and Health Impacts. Copyright 2008 John Wiley Sons, Inc.)...

To overcome environmental and health issues flame retardants based on metal hydroxides like magnesium hydroxide and aluminum trihydroxide were developed and used to reduce flammability of polymeric materials. The major drawback of metal hydroxide-type conventional fillers is the high concentration (usually above 50 wt.%) requirements to obtain satisfactory flame-retardant effects. Such high filler loadings consequently... 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concentrates on modeling the dispersion of toxic material in the environment and the health effects thereof rather than accident prevention, The... 

When spills and releases of hazardous gases or liquids occur, the concentration of the hazardous material in the vicinity of the release is often the greatest concern, since potential health effects on those nearby will be determined by the concentration of the substance at the time of the acute exposure. There are many models of routine continuous discharges (e.g., discharges arising from leaky valves in chemical plants), but these carmot be applied to single episodic events. Research on the ambient behavior of short-term environmental releases and the development of models for concentration profiles in episodic releases are cmcial if we are to plan appropriate safety and abatement measures. 

CAS = Chemical Abstracts Services DOT/UN/NA/IMCO = Department of Transportation/United Nations/North America/International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code EPA = Environmental Protection Agency HSDB = Hazardous Substance Data Bank NCI = National Cancer Institute NIOSH = National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health OHM/TADS = Oil and Hazardous Materials/Technical Assistance Data System RTECS = Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances... 

One of the most widely established processes using SCCO2 is the decaffeination of coffee. Prior to widespread use of this process in the 1980s the preferred extraction solvent was dichloromethane. The potential adverse health effects of chlorinated materials were realized at this time and, although there was no direct evidence of any adverse health effects being caused by any chlorinated residues in decaffeinated coffee there was always the risk, highlighted in some press scare stories. Hence the current processes offer health, environmental and economic advantages. 

Shallow innovation can appear to be an attractive strategy. Particularly where a specific ingredient is a cause for concern, finding a substitute looks like the quickest and most cost-effective solution. Organisations like the Environmental Protection Agency in the US have collated tables of known substitutes for materials where the environmental or health and safety profile have caused concern. This approach is particularly used for solvents, and has been quite effective. ... 

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