EC238 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, Municipal Solid Waste, Ethylene Glycol
Document Summary
Lesson 11: toxic waste and local environmental issues. Hazardous and toxic wastes are distinguished by their short and long term potency. Such chemical compounds are a part of modern economies like ours with new ones being invented all the time. Little is known about the dangers of these thousands of compounds on their own or from the presence of multiple compounds often found together in the environment. Frequently only small quantities are released into the environment at one time. As well many of these compounds are cumulative pollutants that take a long time to break down. Toxics can cause extensive damages to human health and ecosystems, often with long time lags between release and damages. For these reasons, toxics and hazardous waste present unique monitoring and control problems. Table 18-1 presents a list of 25 of the core contaminants released into the air, water and land reported by the national pollutant release inventory (npri) for 2012, 2008 and 2000.
