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
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. The events started to happen when the leftover contents of Reactor B from the previous night’s shift were not fully cooled. According to Italian law, all factories and plants were to be shutdown over the weekend and only cleaning and maintenance
CHEM3001 – Case Study Nicola Broun 21151388 Seveso Accident Background In the town of Seveso 25 km from Milan, the ICMESA factory (based on Swiss company Givaudan) was responsible for the manufacture of 2,4,5-trichlorophenol (TCP), a herbicide (Lees and Mannan, 2005). The reaction process normally required a time frame of approximately 14 hours (Sambeth, 1983). This process involves the alkaline hydrolysis of 1,2,4,5 – Tetrachlorobenzene in Ethyleneglycol solvent. Xylene is also added to the
Dioxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known. A report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had on public health in the 1960's. According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be no "safe" level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals have been found in the general US population that
Challenger space apparatus blast in 1986} plant blasts {e.g. at Bhopal, India,1946; Seveso, Italy,1976} One of the outcomes of such occasions as these - generally unintended - improvements for businesses7 was an interest for the foundation of formal codes of business practice. The Development of corporate codes of morals and of corporate