General public, hazards

Accidents in chemical plants make headline news, especially when there is loss of hfe or the general public is affected in even the slightest way. This increases the public s concern and may lead to government action. The terms hazard and risk are defined as follows ... 

These markings provide a general idea of the hazards of a material and the severity of these hazards as they relate to handling, fire protection, exposure, and control. This standard is not applicable to transportation or to use by the general public. It is also not applicable to chronic exposure. For a full description of this standard, refer to NFPA 704. The system identifies the hazards of a material in four principal categories health, flammability, reactivity, and unusual hazards such as reactivity with water. 

Refer to the handbook s Glossary. The definitions provided are universally recognized. Many of these terms are not just pertinent to inhalation hazards. It would be remiss not to mention other risks beyond inhalation from chemical exposure in a work environment and to the general public. 

HAZARDOUS MATERIALS (SUBSTANCES/WASTES) A hazardous material is any substance that causes or may cause adverse affects on the health or safety of employees, the general public, or the environment any biological agent and other disease-causing agent, or a waste or combination of wastes. 

This chapter of the profile is a health effects summary written in non-technical language. Its intended audience is the general public especially people living in the vicinity of a hazardous waste site or chemical release. If the Public Health Statement were removed from the rest of the document, it would still communicate to the lay public essential information about the chemical. 

In conclusion, the limited animal and human data suggest that acute to intermediate exposures to mineral oil hydraulic fluids do not represent a major hazard to the neurological health of workers or the general public. The possible presence of low levels of neurotoxic organophosphate esters in these fluids, however, may lead to some concern to limit exposure. 

An American Medical Association committee concluded that the general public does not now, or in the immediate future, face a health hazard. Do you agree with that Muskie persisted. 

EPCRA also requires facilities to notify the appropriate state and local authorities if releases of certain chemicals occur. Facilities must also compile specific information about hazardous chemicals they have on-site and the threats posed by those substances. Some of this information must be provided to state and local authorities. More specific data must be made available upon request from those authorities or from the general public. 

A vessel, which if a rupture occurred due to a fire exposure would not endanger personnel, damage important or critical facilities, cause significant financial impacts, create an environmental hazard or create an undesirable reaction from the general public. 

The high visibility of water-soluble dyes released to the environment ensures that only extremely low concentrations in watercourses would not be noticed. A typical visibility limit in a river would be about 0.1 to 1 mg/1, but this varies with the colour, illumination and degree of clarity of the water. The human eye can detect a reactive dye concentration as low as 0.005 mg/1 in pure water, particularly in the red to violet hue sector [88]. There is considerable debate, however, about what level of environmental hazard is represented per se by colour in effluent. The view has been expressed that dyestuffs should not be regarded as water pollutants because at concentrations of the same order of magnitude as these visibility limits their harmful effects are negligible [89]. Nevertheless, even though this colour problem is mainly if not entirely an aesthetic one, the fact is that the general public will not tolerate coloured amenity water and the problem therefore has to be addressed and rectified [90,91,92],... 

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