Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
What Harmful Chemicals Are in Your Home?
Cleaning
Gardening
• Disinfectants
• Drain, toilet, and
window cleaners
• Spot removers
• Septic tank cleaners
• Pesticides
• Weed killers
• Ant and rodent killers
• Flea powders
Paint
• Latex and oil-based paints
• Paint thinners, solvents,
and strippers
• Stains, varnishes,
and lacquers
• Wood preservatives
• Artist paints and inks
Automotive
• Gasoline
• Used motor oil
• Antifreeze
• Battery acid
• Solvents
• Brake and transmission
fluid
• Rust inhibitor and
rust remover
General
• Dry-cell batteries
(mercury and cadmium)
• Glues and cements
Figure 17-13
Science:
harmful chemicals found in many homes. Congress has exempted
disposal of these materials from government regulation.
Critical thinking: which of these
chemicals are in your home? Which ones could you do without?
Figure 17-14 lists the priorities that prominent sci-
entists believe we should follow in dealing with haz-
ardous waste. Denmark is following these priorities
but most countries are not.
100,00 to more than 1 million people. The 2001 attacks
on New York City's World Trade Center Towers and
the Pentagon have heightened concerns about terrorist
acts against such plants.
Analysts view such plants as easy targets for acts
of sabotage. There are no federal laws establishing
minimum security at these chemical facilities. In addi-
tion, slow-moving railcars carrying hazardous chemi-
cals to and from such plants regularly pass through
urban areas. And some of the railcars are parked near
residential areas for extended periods. Barges carrying
hazardous chemicals that move up and down the
country's waterways are also largely unprotected.
In 2004, a study by the Working Group on the Com-
munity Right-to-Know pointed out that terrorist acts or
accidents could release large quantities of gaseous am-
monia or chlorine used at some 275 of the nation's
power plants. Such releases pose a potential danger to
3.5 million Americans. The study noted that less harm-
ful substitutes for these chemicals are available.
Critical
thinking: what three things would you do to reduce such
risks?
Science and Politics: How Safe Are U.S.
Chemical Plants from Terrorist Attacks?
Large amounts of hazardous wastes could be released
into the environment by terrorist attacks on major
chemical plants in the United States.
Managers of industrial plants that manufacture and
use chemicals work hard to prevent accidental release
of chemicals that can harm workers or nearby resi-
dents. But accidents can happen, as thousands of peo-
ple living near a pesticide manufacturing plant in
Bhopal, India, learned in 1984 (see Case Study, p. 403).
Roughly 15,000 chemical plants, refineries, and
other sites in the United States contain large quantities
of hazardous chemicals. According to the EPA, at
about 790 sites the toll of death or injury from a cata-
strophic disaster at a chemical plant could reach from
