Cadmium and sewage sludge
This essay concentrates on the heavy metal cadmium, and its occurrence in the environment, its pathways into and out of the human body and its movement into and out of Sewage sludge. Firstly, I will provide a clear definition of the Heavy Metal Cadmium.
What is Cadmium?
Cadmium is a naturally occurring element in the earth’s crust. Pure cadmium is a soft silver-white metal, but this form is not common in the environment. Rather, cadmium is most often encountered in combination with other elements such as oxygen (cadmium oxide), chlorine (cadmium chloride), or sulphur (cadmium sulphide). These compounds are all stable solids that do not evaporate, although cadmium oxide is often found as part of small particles present in air.
Most cadmium is obtained as a by-product from the smelting of zinc, lead or copper ores. Cadmium has a number of industrial applications, but it is used mostly in metal plating, pigments, batteries, and plastics.
Cadmium in the Environment
Small quantities of cadmium occur naturally in air, water, soil and food. For most people, food is the primary source of cadmium exposure, since food materials tend to take up and retain cadmium. For example, plants take up cadmium from soil; fish take up cadmium from water, and so on.
It is introduced into the environment from mining and smelting operations. Other cadmium emissions are from fossil fuel use, fertilizer application, sewage sludge disposal or galvanized pie corrosion. The largest source of these cadmium releases into the general environment is the burning of fossil fuels (such as coal or oil) or the incineration of waste materials. Cadmium may also escape into the air from zinc, lead or copper smelters. Working in or living close to a major source of airborne emissions such as these may result in higher than average exposure.
Pathways into the human body
Food and Drink
Cadmium can enter the blood by absorption from the stomach or intestines after ingestion of food or water. The amount of Cadmium ingested by an individual within a population can differ greatly due to dietary habits. For example, an individual who consumes a large amount of brown crabmeat or vegetables grown on land which is fertilised with sewage sludge are likely to have intakes of cadmium significantly above the average population level.
Only a small percentage of cadmium ingested with the food intake is absorbed, approximately 6%. However there are many factors, which can affect this figure, namely, physiological, such as age and the content of the diet.
Toxic Sludge is Good for You is an accumulation of real life PR situations that depict the worst of the worst in the American public relations industry. The authors tell one side of the story by naming names and revealing how they worked their magic to manipulate and deceive the public. The book exposes bogus news, made up ‘grassroots” organizations, public relation spies, and other methods to demonstrate how information that comes from corporations, politicians, and other governments can be skewed and controlled before it reaches the masses.
Wagner, H. M. Recent Trends In Human Lead Exposure. New Horizons in Biological Dosimetry, 1991, pp. 179-186.
The copper ions are transferred from the water where they are of a high concentr... ... middle of paper ... ... is likely to be placed and a thorough environmental impact assessment carried out to ensure that the processes do not cause undue environmental damageι. Finally governmental permission must be obtained before commercial activity can take placeι. References α - Article 1 from examination pack: Mining with microbes, John Merson. β - How hydrometallurgy and the SX/EW process made copper the "green" metal, William Dresher. γ - Article 2 from examination pack: Extracting copper from leaching solutions.
One out of every six children under the age of six are suffering from health disorders due to the poisonous metal, lead. Lead is a natural occurring bluish-gray metal found in the earth's crust. It has no taste or smell. Lead can easily be found in all parts of our environment today. Most of it comes from mining, manufacturing, and the burning of fossil fuels. In the United States lead poison has increased because of the lack of knowledge in our society. Lead is released into the environment by industries, the burning of fossil fuels or wastes.
Nowadays this element more active or used for infrastructures, electronics goods, and other services, this element also we call it a Dr. Copper element because of high levels of sense of Ph.D. economic benefits. Copper has 20 protons and electrons with the symbol of Cu. In 21 century the market of this element goes up to 20 million tons a year buy and sell in the world trades scale in three big cities in the world such as New York, London, and Shanghai. Cu more necessary for wire, electronics, and computer chips; Copper also helps us to away bacteria
Lead in number 82 on the periodic table. Lead is usually found in ore with silver and copper and it is extracted together with them. Lead occurs naturally in the environment. However, most lead that is found in the environment results from human uses such as lead from batteries, gasoline or lead that has escaped into the environment from places like smelters.
In conclusion, lead is a very widespread poison that has been intertwined throughout the history of mankind. To prevent poisoning from this toxic substance, foods should be washed prior to cooking of eating. Hands, particularly those of young children, should be washed before meals (Harte et al. 1991). Flaking lead-based paint needs to be removed by a professional; intact lead paint on buildings should be maintained occasionally by painting over using lead-free coatings. Joggers and cyclists should exercise away from traffic and avoid peak driving hours (Harte et al. 1991). As a nation, strides are being made to lower contact with lead on day to day bases. On the other hand, countries around the world need to learn from history’s mistakes on lead usage; otherwise, they are just going to repeat the past.
Lead has become both a blessing and a curse to the population. It has provided us with many tools in order to help us live but it has caused lots of health related incidents. People who have been exposed to lead products within their environment risk the chance of having developmental problems along with causing organs within the body to become infected. Young children are especially vulnerable to the effects of lead because they absorb as much as 5 times more ingested lead than adults. They can suffer
Fluoride can be absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract after ingestion, Inhalation, Skin. In areas where fluoride rich coal is used for heating and food preparation. Soluble forms of fluoride, such as those added to fluoridate water, have been found to be absorbed at an efficiency of 90 percent or greater. Of the ingested fluoride that remains in the body, 99 percent of it will get incorporated into bones and teeth.
...and production is thought to be one of the leading causes of this pollutant in the atmosphere. Taller smoke stacks on factories manage to carry the pollution farther away from nearby populations, but in doing this they also manage to carry the pollutants to a much wider range. The chemicals can be carried high and far into the atmosphere and can be deposited in areas far from the initial source of the pollution. (5)
Plasma was considered as the most important part of human blood, which carries out most of the function in relation to transport. Fluids is the major constituent of plasma, with an estimated total protein concentration of about 7.0-7.5 g/dl, as the solid component in plasma, that contain a complex mixture of different proteins which are mainly glycoprotein and lipoproteins. The concentration of plasma protein is largely occupied by Albumin, which is about 3.4-4.7 g/dl as the major protein; this protein will be discourse in further details, (Murray et al 2003). Plasma protein plays a role as biomarkers in diagnosing human diseases, due to their functions as dynamic interface for molecular transport in the body even though, their determination is very difficult because it contain almost 3700 different proteins as found in the literature, (Manley and Gailer, 2009). It was well known from early research, (Himmelhoch, et al, 1966) that plasma protein contain a minute amount of metals, and different technique were used to determine distribution, which will explained in more details. These metals are essential for many function in relation to good health of a living organism, 15 trace element found in plasma were considered of great importance in this aspect which includes but not limited to: Fe, Zn, Cu, Se, Co, I, K, Na, Mg, Mn, Ca, as reported by (Muniz, et al 2013). However, among these trace element Cu and Zn where considered as the most important of all the trace elements in coordinating health activities and were found to bound one metal per protein. The distribution of these metals was found to be high in Plasma Albumin with a concentration of 36.1-53.6 ...
Symptoms of lead poisoning include loss of appetite, weakness, anemia, vomiting, and convulsions, sometimes leading to permanent brain damage or death. Children who ingest chips of old, lead-containing paint or are exposed to dust from the deterioration of such paint may exhibit symptoms. Levels of environmental lead considered nontoxic may also be involved in increased hypertension in a significant number of persons, according to studies released in the mid-1980s. As a result, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in recent years have been revising downward the levels of environmental lead that it would consider safe.
There are many different types of alloys; some are so common that they carry on a life beyond their metal bases. For example, 65-90% of copper mixed with 10-35% of zinc create the well known alloy brass, which provides increased resistance to corrosion in things like instruments and
...rbon dioxide, hazardous chemicals, and other pollutants, which can put a hole in the ozone. Also, the usage of some mineral resources can also pollute the air; burning any kind of fuel fossils releases dangerous elements into the air, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. All of these kinds of pollution which are caused by the increase of technology, can lead to global environmental problems.
Solid waste pollution will always be an issue as long as human population increases everyday .solid waste is not only cause by household only, the industries as well have hand on environment pollution. And due to improper disposal system solid waste end up on the road. Solid waste have a huge effect on human life and can also cause death in animals as well, as people clean their houses everyday litter their trash everywhere this problem will not stop. But the most dangerous waste are those coming from the industries, because those waste end up in stream, rivers where it poisonous and have bad impact on the marine life. Industrial waste are the source of toxic metal and hazardous waste that effect soil characteristic and productivity of soil when dumped in ground. And the problem lies where some of the waste do not decompose. These solid waste are hazardous, Pesticides poisonous which is not health and life threatening to both humans and animals. People are very much aware of recycling to reduce pollution yet they still fail in doing so. Silt build in freshwater water ecosystems, caused by the unnecessarily agricultural activities smothers aquatic organisms. To reduce solid waste they should be recycled in such a way that do not harm the both the environment, water, air and human health. There are animals such as