Environmental inventory

A major reassessment of historical discharges and doses has been carried out, prompted in large part by civil litigation instigated by a number of local families against British Nuclear Fuels pic, the operators of the Sellafield plant. The reassessment involved the development of the Sellafield Environmental Assessment Model (SEAM), which was used both to calculate doses and to build confidence in the discharge chronology from recorded measurements of environmental concentrations and current assessments of environmental inventories. 

Metrics may also be indexed with respect to a manufacturing output, input, throughput, or batch size, as discussed in AUen and Rosselot (1997). Product-based environmental impact analysis requires activity-based inventory assessment (Stuart et al. 1998). Similar to activity-based costing (see Chapter 89), activity-based environmental inventory assessment recognizes the hieiarchy of impacts tmd assigns them proportionately to an activity such as a product or service. 

A three-step methodology for activity-based environmental inventory allocation is useful in calculating data for the first step of life cycle assessment. First, the process flow and system boundary... 

Paul AG, Jones KC, Sweetman AJ (2008) A first global production, emission, and environmental inventory for perfluorooctane sulfonate. Environ Sci Technol 43 386-392... 

The life cycle is first defined and the complete resource requirements (materials and energy) quantified. This allows the total environmental emissions associated with the life cycle to be quantified by putting together the individual parts. This defines the life-cycle inventory. 

Once the life-cycle inventory has been quantified, we can attempt to characterize and assess the eflfects of the environmental emissions in a life-cycle impact analysis. While the life-cycle inventory can, in principle at least, be readily assessed, the resulting impact is far from straightforward to assess. Environmental impacts are usually not directly comparable. For example, how do we compare the production of a kilogram of heavy metal sludge waste with the production of a ton of contaminated aqueous waste A comparision of two life cycles is required to pick the preferred life cycle. 

Having attempted to quantify the life-cycle inventory and impact, a life-cycle improvement analysis suggests environmental improvements. 

CHEMblST " The CHEMLlS l Pile contains chemical substances on national inventories, registered by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), TTie dala in GPdHMLIS l arc from 1979 to the present, there arc more than 228 380 records (September, 2002). CHHMLlS l is updated weekly with more than 50 addilions to eUsling records or new subslances. 

Procedures for Emission Inventory Preparation, Vol. 1 -4, Pub. No. EPA 450-4-81-026A-E, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park,N.C, 1981. 

Toxic Substances Control Act, Public Law No. 469, 94th U.S. Congress Chemical Substance Inventory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Toxic Substances, Wasliiagton, D.C., 1975. 

Chlor—alkah production is the largest iadustrial source of mercury release ia the United States (see Alkali and chlorine products). For the 1991 reporting year, chlor—alkah faciUties accounted for almost 20% of the faciUties that reported releases of mercury to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for inclusion onto the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) (25). 

Toxic Substances Control Act, Chemical Substances Inventory further information can be obtained from Industry Assistance Office, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. 

Poly(vinyl chloride) is Hsted on the TSCA inventory and the Canadian Domestic Substances List (DSL) as ethene, chloro-, homopolymer [9002-86-2]. Because polymers do not appear on the European Community Commercial Chemical Substances listing or EINECS, poly(vinyl chloride) is listed through its monomer, vinyl chloride [75-01-4]. In the United States, poly(vinyl chloride) is an EPA hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act Section 112 (40 CER 61) and is covered under the New Jersey Community Right-to-Know Survey N.J. Environmental Hazardous Substances (EHS) List as "chloroethylene, polymer" with a reporting threshold of 225 kg (500 lb). 

U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Quality Inventory, 1994 Report to Congress, Report EPA841-R-95-05, Washington, D.C., 1995. 

Death Valley, California, has historically been a significant source of both colemanite and ulexite, but mining in the Death Valley National Monument has been forbidden as a result of environmental concerns. In 1986, the American Borate Co. ceased mining in Death Valley, but continues to market ore concentrate from inventory as well as borates and concentrates imported from Turkey. 

All four butanols are registered ia the United States on the Environmental Protection Agency Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventory, a prerequisite for the manufacture or importation for commercial sale of any chemical substance or mixture ia quantities greater than a 1000 pounds (454 kg). Additionally, the manufacture and distribution of the butanols ia the United States are regulated under the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), Section 313, which requires that anyone handling at least 10,000 pounds (4545 kg) a year of a chemical substance report to both the EPA and the state any release of that substance to the environment. 

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was enacted in 1976 to identify and control toxic chemical ha2ards to human health and the environment. One of the main provisions of TSCA was to estabUsh and maintain an inventory of all chemicals in commerce in the United States for the purpose of regulating any of the chemicals that might pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. An initial inventory of chemicals was estabhshed by requiring companies to report to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) all substances that were imported, manufactured, processed, distributed, or disposed of in the United States. Over 50,000 chemical substances were reported. PoUowing this initial inventory, introduction of all new chemical substances requires a Premanufacturing Notification (PMN) process. To be included in the PMN are the identity of the new chemical, the estimated first year and maximum production volume, manufacture and process information, a description of proposed use, potential release to the environment, possible human exposure to the new substance, and any health or environmental test data available at the time of submission. In the 10 years that TSCA has been in effect, the USEPA has received over 10,000 PMNs and up to 10% of the submissions each year are for dyes (382)... 

---