Hazards in chemical activities

The prime responsibility of the ACS Committee on Chemical Safety (CCS) is the encouragement of safe practices in chemical activities. The CCS serves as a resource for chemical professionals mainly in the United States in providing advice and counsel on the handling of chemicals, and it seeks to ensure safe facilities, designs, and operations by calling attention to potential hazards and stimulating education in safe chemical practices. The CCS also provides advice to other ACS units on matters related to chemical safety and health. A variety of publications are available free on its Web site. ... 

Bioremediation. Bioremediation has great appeal. It is a natural process that degrades hazardous organic chemicals into innocuous carbon dioxide and water or nonhazardous byproducts and it is often less expensive and more effective than pump and treat methods. Articles on bioremediation appear regularly in environmental journals and the U.S. EPA has its own regular series of reports on current activities called "Bioremediation in the Pield."... 

The Brio refining site is approximately 58 acres in size and is the location of a former chemical production, recovery, refinery, and regeneration facility. The site includes closed impoundments into which hazardous substances were disposed in bulk, storage tanks, and approximately 1,750 drums of hazardous substances. Remediation activities included the excavation and incineration of contaminated soil, installation of protective liners around selected pits, and the installation of a groundwater extraction system adjacent to a gully. 

The following is a list by major heading of processes in the Chemical Industry. While accidents can occur in any activity, the scope of the chemical process industry is so wide that processes are selected for description based on judged hazard. These are identified by the number of the section in which they are described. Process not identified by a three digit number are excluded on the basis of low perceived accident potential. 

Reducing the intrinsic hazard of chemicals is the most effective and most fundamental of the risk reduction options available. Intrinsic risk reduction is based on the principle that the structure of a chemical drives hazard and molecular intentional, informed manipulation will result in the design of safer chemicals. Wastewater treatment plants employ large filters packed with granular activated carbon to remove polluted water. Synthetic chemists are... 

The danger to domestic animals, including pets, is an important hazard in the use of all newer economic poisons. Drift dusts or sprays from carelessly applied materials may set back the useful development of many valuable chemicals. Only recently have authorities finally decided that we should slow down on the use of DDT on cows until we know more about the occurrence of the chemical in rtiilk, butter, and steaks. Our sportsmen and, incidentally, a major economic factor in our pleasant way of life—the fish, game, and wildlife activities—are part and parcel of the problem of chemical usage in forests and streams. We need continued and expanded investigations of the effects of the newer pesticides on wild life. 

In the frames of the basic goal to protect the population from the harmful effects of failures, there are a number of measures to be implemented for the protection of and for the diminishing the consequences of failure on personnel and local inhabitants in areas with dangerous chemical production industry. More than 3,930 thousands of tons of hazardous chemical substances are stored or used in production activities of the 78 industrial plants that operate in the Zaporozhia region. These substances include over 0,9 thousands of tons of chlorine, over 1,831 thousands of tons of ammonia and about 1,101 thousands of tons of other hazardous chemicals. 

In this research, the main focus is safety in a chemical company handling hazardous substances. The risks of accidents or other events during processes involving hazardous substances (flammable, toxic, or explosive) or activities where extreme conditions are used (like high/low pressures or high/low temperatures), are subject of this research. Process safety is the absence of risk from events with these hazardous substances and activities with extreme conditions. Non-process safety or process risk is often measured by accidents, incidents and near misses and this concept will be discussed in the following sub-Section. 

Pre-entry criteria define the conditions and circumstances under which site characterization activities will be initiated and the manner in which these activities will proceed. At each stage of the process (i.e., approach to the site, on-site characterization activities, sample collection, and exiting the site), specific criteria may be defined for proceeding to the next stage. The pre-entry criteria may also specify the general makeup of the site characterization team under various circumstances. For example, under low-hazard conditions chemical facility teams may perform site characterization, while specially trained responders might be called upon to assist in the case of potentially hazardous conditions at the site. The criteria developed for a particular chemical facility should be consistent with the role that the facility has assumed in performing site characterization activities. 

ARIP involves collecting questionnaire information from facilities that have had significant releases of hazardous substances, developing a national accidental release database, analyzing the collected information, and disseminating the results of the analysis to those involved in chemical accident prevention activities. ARIP also helps to focus industry s attention on the causes of accidental releases and the means to prevent them. The database is publicly available and covers incidents from 1986-1999. 

Assessment of environmental and health hazards from chemicals reqnires a multidisciplinary approach. One needs to consider chemical economics, production, usage, and so on environmental release monitoring data environmental behavior health and environmental effects. Often events concerning environmental and health hazards can be predicted based on strnctnre and activity relationships and physical-chemical characteristics. The first volnme of their publication has made available current information in several important areas of chemical hazard assessment (Saxena and Fisher, 1981 Saxena, 1983 Saxena, 1984). 

K.P. (1990) Mode of action and the assessment of chemical hazards in the presence of limited data use of structure-activity relationships (SAR) under TSCA, Section 5. Environ. Health Perspect., 87, 183-197. 

The evaluation of chemical hazard and chemical action by means of the REACH activities in the European Union might be a useful source of future prospective evaluation of the probable eye bums due to chemicals. 

Auer, C. J. M., J. V. Nabholz, and K. P. Baetke, Mode of Action and the Assessment of Chemical Hazards in the Presence of Limited Data Use of Structure-Activity Priorities, 1990. Washington, DC National Academy Press. 

Because mixed waste contains radionuclides and hazardous chemicals, it is subject to dual regulation under AEA and RCRA. Mixed waste generated in commercial activities is regulated under EPA or state RCRA requirements and NRC or comparable Agreement State requirements under AEA. Mixed waste generated by DOE is regulated by DOE under AEA and by EPA or a state under RCRA. This dual regulatory framework has created difficulties for mixed waste... 

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