Chemical safety problems

Abstract

A situation of chemical safety is reached when the effects of organic, inorganic and organometallic toxic substances enable people to maintain good health and to preserve the biodiversity of ecosystems. After establishing that many compounds which contaminate the environment produce adverse toxic effects on humans and ecotoxic effects on the biota, numerous efforts have been undertaken both nationally and internationally to reduce and/or eliminate emissions and the discharge of toxic substances (PTS), including POPs. Terrestrial chemical sputniks are compounds that enter the atmosphere through various anthropic sources and travel varying distances on the Earth before being deposited in the different regions of our planet via rain and snow. The emission of toxic materials produced in any one nation will firstly contaminate the country itself, then spread to neighbouring countries and will finally affect countries further afield. Observation on a global scale has shown that the temperature gradient of the environment, combined with a favourable atmospheric situation, gradually moves from hot to cold regions leading to “polar distillation”, in other words a continuously increasing concentration of compounds in polar areas and high altitude regions. Chemical Boomerangs are those compounds introduced by people into their lives to carry out specific tasks ( for exemple, pesticides, paints, coal, solvents, petroleum).

Keywords

• global contamination
• public health
• safety