Industrial pollution, perception

Changing perception of industrial pollution There has been a tremendous rise in awareness about industrial pollution in general public and institutions. This has forced governments to take steps to control pollution from industries. 

There are a large number of chemical industries in operation and new ones are being added all over the world. However, the general perception is that though very useful, chemical industries pollute the environment and could be very dangerous some times. 

Pattern recognition methods have been used for the description of air pollution in the industrialized region at the estuary of the river Rhine near Rotterdam. A selection of about eight chemical and physical-meteorological features offers a possibility for a description that accounts for out 70% of the information that is ccmprised in these features with two parameters only. Prediction of noxious air situations scmetimes succeeds for a period of at most four hours in advance. Seme-times, hewever, no prediction can be made. Investigations pertaining to the correlation between air conpo-sition and complaints on bad smell by inhabitants of the area show that, apart frem physical and chemical descriptors, other features are also involved that depend on human perception and bdiaviour. 

The Brussels Roundtable discussions also point out the interactions between the different stakeholders, e.g. the industry and consumers. As Terence Koh of the Singapore Chemicals Industry Council argued, the chemicals industry demands that it should not be reduced to a role of polluter and in fact, it has recognised that it does well in accommodating public concerns. Daniel Verbist of the European Chemicals Industry Council further argued that We need to learn from scientific progress as well as from public perception to update our knowledge and adapt our practice. ... 

In many parts of the world, the public perceive the chemical industry as polluting and are concerned about the impact of chemical products on health, safety, and the environment [7]. This poor perception has become more significant since the mid-1980s. This is despite the fact that measurable improvements have been achieved in the reduction of emissions. There is thus a link between the public s attitude and their behavior as consumers. A further contributor here is the increase in freedom of environmental information for instance easier access to public registers of pollutants. 

The perception that the industry has not been working hard to improve, is not borne out by the facts. An initiative named Responsible Care which is the chemical industry s commitment to continuous improvement in all aspects of health, safety and environmental protection was launched in Canada in 1984. It was adopted by the USA in 1988 and has been spreading around the world since then. Apart from North America and Europe which are discussed below, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, India, Zimbabwe and other countries have adopted it [5]. The European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) has drawn up guidelines which are given in Figure 1.1 [5]. In the UK, where the Chemical Industries Association (CIA) makes participation in the Responsible Care initiative a condition of membership, discharges of red list substances (compounds of mercury and cadmium, DDT, malathion, triphenyl and tributyl tin, etc.) fell by 40% between 1990 and 1992 whilst special wastes (compounds of arsenic, antimony, barium, mercury, nickel, vanadium, etc.) disposed of off site fell by 9% [6]. The Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) in the USA also makes participation a condition of membership and one of its Pollution Prevention Code requirements is very relevant to this book ... 

It is not surprising to find that the social perception of chemistry has gradually gone worse over the past few decades. With an increased concern on sustainability, we should agree that many of today s environmental problems are caused, among others, by pollutants hnked to chemical industries, but it is the same perception that makes us more difficult to recognize that the best solutions to many of these and other transcendental problems lie in chemical science. 

Until recently a common perception of the Arctic was as an almost virgin land, not yet impacted by technological activity. Meanwhile a long term attitude to the Arctic as the resourceful colony of the Soviet Union resulted in an accumulation of liquid and solid waste and a heavy contamination of the environment. Official statistics indicate that total accumulation of the waste in the Arctic region is close to 100 million tonnes. 600,000 km, which constitute around 10% of the whole Russian territory, are contaminated by chemicals. Total or partial degradation of ecosystems can be observed on the territory of 80 km (Arctic, p. 47]. Only Russian Arctic includes so called "impacted zones", where the environmental situation can be defined as acute or catastrophic (Fig. 1). The main polluters are Navies and militaries, mining industry, smelters and power plants. Transport and oil industry thus far have less impact on the Arctic enviromnent. 

---