Introduction (idea for quote used from the foreword of Poison[1])
Excerpt from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson [2]
“There was once a town where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings…
Then a strange blight crept over the area…Mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sicken died. Everywhere was the shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness in their families. In the town, the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sicknesses…
In the gutters under the eaves and between the shingles of the roofs, a white granular powder still showed a few patches; some weeks before, it had fallen like snow upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and the streams…
This town does not actually exist…I know of no community that has experienced all of the misfortune I describe…(Italics added)”
When Rachel Carson wrote her book in 1962, readers were very quick to note that Silent Spring was a fictional novel and the events described in the early pages of the novel were irrelevant and not actually possible. However, the events that took place in Seveso, Italy at the Industrie Chimiche Meda Società Azionaria (ICMESA) on July 10th, 1976 would prove to the world otherwise; a disaster of this nature can take place near any chemical plant.
Events
(The series of events were adapted from The Roche Group [3])
Between the years of 1969-1970, ICMESA began the production 2,4,5-trichlorophenol (TCP), which is a intermediate product used to create many other products at the time. From 1970 to July of 1976, there were rising TCP production levels, all of which was delivered to Givaudan, its parent company. TCP productions took place in Building B of the facility where the accident took place on Jul...
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...alized. Little do they know that these neighboring families have been poisoned and will have to leave everything behind.
References
[1] Fuller, John G.. The Poison That Fell From The Sky. New York: Random House, 1977.
[2] Carson, Rachel, Lois Darling, and Louis Darling. Silent spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin ;, 1962.
[3] "Seveso-30 Years After: A chronology of events Alleviating the consequences of the accident: milestones between 1976 and 2006." The Roche Group. http://www.siznursing.be/index.php?preaction=joint&id_joint=71790 (accessed April 21, 2014).
[4] Fara, G. M.. "The ICMESA accident. First intervention for the protection of man and environment." Chemistry, Man and Environment 1 (1999): 3-16.
[5] Axelson, O.. "The epidemiologic evidence of health effects of tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD) in human beings." Chemistry, Man and Environment 1 (1999): 29-38.
The book jumps to a distressing story about Peter Los in 1970 in West Germany who became ill due to smallpox. After ten days he was hospitalized but medical staff did not realize he had smallpox, which is highly contagious. Preston gives vivid descriptions of the disease and how it ravages the body. Los survived his illness, but caused an epidemic that killed many others that had become exposed to him. “Today, the people who plan for a smallpox emergency can’t get the image of the Meschede hospital out of their minds.
The accident began about 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, when there was failure in the secondary, non-nuclear section of the plant. The main feedwater pumps stopped running, which was caused by either a mechanical or electrical failure that prevented the steam generators from removing heat. First the turbine, then the reactor automatically shut down. Then the pressure in the primary system (the nuclear portion of the plant) began to increase. In order to stop that pressure from becoming excessive, the pressurizer relief valve opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased by a certain amount, but it did not. Signals available to the operator failed to show that the valve was still open. As a result, the stuck-open valve caused the pressure to continue to decrease in the system.
The Plague takes place in Oran, a small, Mediterranean town in North Africa. Dr. Bernard Rieux describes it as an ugly town. Oranians are boring people who appear to only love during sex, and otherwise live monotonous and habitual lives. The main interest of the town is money, an interest which runs the lives of its inhabitants. Rieux describes the town s view of death as something that occurs daily, or the normal day-to-day process of dying. He then informs the reader that the coastal town actually does not face the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, it is almost impossible to see the bay from the town, a town which seemingly turns its back on live and freedom. Rieux then begins the story of the plague. Rieux steps on a dead rat and soon sees them everywhere, along with the townspeople. Their mouths leak blood and their corpses are bloated. Rieux and the Oranians ignore the problem at first, blaming sanitation bureau. Howe...
In conclusion, the Chernobyl disaster was immensely destructive and the impacts will continue affecting the European population for hundreds of years to come. These impacts are seen changing the lives of humans and animals in the contaminated zone. By utilizing various primary and secondary sources it is evident that the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 is most definitely significant. Unfortunately, radioactive waste can be hard to control and dispose of making it overwhelmingly powerful and widespread. Overall, Chernobyl has created a lasting legacy of how dangerous nuclear power is. (Chemistry in Context)
As several years pass to what is now the Information Age, technology is continuing to grow where human hands determine its impact. The countless ideas engineers have and the goal of creating it becomes clearer as it benefits humanity and their endeavours. An engineer’s accomplishments of surpassing the boundaries of the impossible are from the unique innovations from people’s ingenuity. An analogy of this comparison is the similarities of an idea to a seed. In relation, a seed follows a pattern to grow until they reach the point where they can sprout to life and be beneficial to society. Because society has become interdependent by technology, the outcomes shall affect not only society, but the environment also. However, various occurrences
It was clear that the governments in America would not issue a permit to Union Carbide plant under such circumstances, which lacked severe environmental standards and permitted slum dwellers to live near the plant and so on. Such actions were the ones that led to more deaths. Before the major gas leakage from the MCI unit on December 3, 1984, some people were killed because of phosgene gas leakage. However, no one took it seriously, despite the media report. One of the reasons that people ignore this was because people didnt know the potential danger of the chemical plant.
The factors that caused the series of events to happen and the dangers were foreseeable and could have been prevented. The ICMESA plant was property of Givaudan S.A., which was located in Geneva, Switzerland. ICMESA produced the intermediate compounds that Givaudan needed to produce its cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps. The compounds produced at this plant ranged from benzyl chloride and cyanide to phenylacetic acid and TCP [4]. The reaction of interest was the one that produced TCP, which was commonly used in surgical soaps. This was not the first plant that produced TCP that had an accident, but it was the first one that severely affected the villages surrounding the plant. TCP was already known to be toxic in its surgical soaps and was already banned from being used in the USA [1]. Though there were rumors about the safety of TCP at the time, TCP itself is only moderately toxic. The real culprit of the toxicity that was experienced in these soaps was a byproduct called 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD, but commonly referred to as dioxin). This compound was significantly more toxic than TCP, but not very much else was known about the compound before the Seveso Disaster.
Rachel begins her book by painting us an image of a small quiet town. Keep in mind though, this town isn’t a real place, but is a parallel of our society. In this town, she describes the people living modest lives, and all is well. This is used to represent the calm before the storm, so to speak. The people start to notice strange things, such as birds dying and strange sicknesses. The people themselves are blissfully unaware of what is happening, and that they are to blame. This example is used in parallel to our world. We are unaware of the effects of Pesticides in the long term and if we don’t become aware of these effects, permanent damage will be done.
The fire stated in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Workers were packaging Prussian Blue (Iron(II, III)hexacyanoferrate(II, III)), a deep blue pigment, using a blow torch and plastic sheet. Unbeknown to them, the compound, which burns with a colourless flame, had caught fire during this process. The fire was first discovered around midnight, and the alarm was immediately raised. Fire services immediately rushed to the scene to put out the blaze, but were greeted by more problems still, as it had grown too large for the usage of foam extinguishers (Angeletti and Bjørseth et al., 1988, pp. 128-131) , which are the traditional treatment for a chemical fire, so water was used instead. The fire had to be extinguished fast, as nearby chemical stores contained phosgene, a valuable reagent in the production of isocyanates, which are, among other things, used in the production of polyurethane tubing. Phosgene is unfortunately also highly hazardous in gaseous form, being odourless up to 0.4ppm, which is four times the level at which it can be fatal (cdc.gov, 1978). The efforts to stop the fire lead to a figure of around 30 tons of agricultural chemicals, mostly pesticide...
In order to stop some contamination, bypass canals were built to isolate the lake from the river, and a storage facility for nuclear waste was built, as well as coolers around them. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) A chain reaction occurred when one of the cooling tanks malfunctioned and was not repaired, ultimately causing the explosion. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) Without proper care these improvements proved to be not so hel...
1. Introduction: In the morning of December 3, 1984 a tragic event occurred in the city of Bhopal, the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. It has been known as the world's worst industrial disaster. A Union Carbide India, Limited (UCIL)'s plant released 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas which instantly killed over 3,000 people and carrying on causing the death of more than 20,000.
Around mid nineteenth century this was considered as the chemical uprising. Many naturally occurring chemicals were released into the environment, this disaster prepared and discharged new substances unlike any had existed in the characteristic world. With the processing and utilization of these chemicals, and the requirement to ensure people from the dangerous impacts of mechanical chemicals; toxicology in the long run developed to incorporate its present day extensions: pharmacology, clinical toxicology, and natural toxicology.
The world’s worst industrial disaster happened in Bhopal, India thirty-one years ago. According to Sinha (2009), “at least 8,000 people died on that night. Half a million were injured. In the years since, as more people died of their injuries and illnesses caused by inhaling the gas, the death toll has risen above 20,000” (para.
Moulton, Charles Wells, ed. The Library of Literary Criticism. Gloucester, Mass: The Moulton Publishing Company. 1959.
Forty-four acres of farmland that--building from memory and photographs--would eventually become the epitome of rustic charm. The old homestead was surrounded by the kind of eerie, primeval wilderness that can only be truly felt by the unfiltered imagination of youth. Never more truer than when the fog would roll out of the thicket, over the rise and fall of the hills and creep up to the doorsteps.