Risk management of chemicals and contaminated land – from planning to verification - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 240

- Training for employees;

- Social care and benefits for the employees;

- Health care of the employees;

- Housing of the employees and quality of the living environment;

- Social services available for the employees within the organization and the

settlement's residential area.

2.2.2 Contaminated land and waste disposal sites

A number of the environmental, economic and social risks and impacts caused by
contaminated land and waste disposal sites are identical to the risks and impacts caused
by chemicals: they can be considered as part of the life cycle of chemical substances.
When contaminated land (e.g. abandoned industrial and mining sites) is considered in
itself, it has no beneficial impacts in one pan of the balance, while there are risks in
the other. The absence of contaminated sites has no negative impacts, while the ban
on chemical substances, pesticides, biocides or pharmaceutical products may cause
a gap and have widespread negative socio-economic impacts. The separation of the
production and use of chemicals from the environmental contamination and waste
produced by them is not acceptable any more, despite of the temporal separation. This
is the main reason for the necessity of life-cycle thinking when evaluating chemical
substances: present-day benefits should compensate future negative impacts.
Human health and environmental risks by contaminated land and waste disposal
sites:

- Risk to public health and safety;

- Emission into air, water and soil from the contaminants at contaminated or waste

disposal sites, including primary and secondary sources (already dispersed and
transported contaminants);

- Risk of interactions between the components of mixtures containing many known

and unknown chemicals;

- Risk by the transformation products and metabolites of the contaminants;

- Air quality from the impact of the contaminants present: local, regional, and

global impacts;

- Water quality and quantity: eutrophication, being toxic or otherwise harmful to

humans and the aquatic ecosystem;

- Current quality and quantity of drinking water: local and watershed-scale

impacts;

- Soil and groundwater quality and quantity of good quality, usable soil;

- Food health: plants, animals, fish, milk produced locally or regionally;

- Impaired ecosystem functions (problems of reference), impact or risk posed to

nonrenewable and renewable resources;

- Quality of and risk posed to biodiversity (number and distribution of species);

- Quality of and risk posed to the landscape, primarily protected landscapes;

- Current land uses;

- Current maintenance: material and energy demand, and risks deriving from these;

- Risk of accidents from contaminated and waste disposal sites;

- Other risks and adverse impacts on environmental and human health from

contaminated and waste disposal sites.