Essay about Chemistry

From 1947 to 1977, these two plants legally discharged from 500,000 to 1.5 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson, and unknowingly saturated the bedrock beneath both sites with at least that much again. There are PCBs in Hudson River water, biota, and sediment from Hudson Falls to New York City - 200 miles that comprise the nations largest Superfund site. Pure PCBs are oozing out of the bedrock to this day, constantly recontaminating the river and over 300,000 pounds remain concentrated in bottom sediments of the river today. The spread of PCBs throughout the Hudson River and the food chain, which it supports, has created one of the most extensive hazardous waste problems in the nation. Polychlorinated biphenyl’s (PCBs) are a group of synthetic oil-like chemicals (therefore insoluble in water) of the organochlorine family. Until their toxic nature was recognized and their use was banned in the 1970s, they were widely used as insulation in electrical equipment, particularly transformers. Reputable chemists have since concluded, “it was probably a mistake ever to make or use PCBs.” These are serious poisons, which have been shown to cause damage to the reproductive, neurological and immune systems of wildlife and humans and are known to cause cancer. Exposure has also been linked to behavioral damage. Specifically, because PCBs in the body mimic estrogen, women of childbearing age and their infants are particularly susceptible

In this Preliminary Public Health Assessment (Pre-PHA), we evaluated exposure of the Milneburge neighborhood community to contaminants in response to their public health complaint with the City of New Orleans. . The homeowners in the neighborhood started to complain of nausea, headache, and dyspnea when they work in their back yards and reported water runoff and soil erosion from the waste management site. So, they were really concerned about their children health because they used to play in the area. As a result of that, we evaluated some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are chemical compounds found in nature or released from burning of coal, oil, tobacco, and wood. Some of these compounds are toxic to lung, liver, and skin. By such Pre-PHA, We can know if the site is extremely contaminated or not and we can assure residents and give them answers about their concerns.

PAH have toxicity potential, environmental persistence, ubiquity and tendency to bioaccumulation, reasons why they are viewed

Polychlorinated Biphenyls, better known as PCBs, are stable, non-flammable, and heat resistant chemicals that were once used in electrical equipment all over the world ("PCBs," 2015). They were domestically made from 1929 until their ban in 1979 and since then they still remain a significant issue in the environment (“PCBs,” 2015). There is little information on why exactly they were initially created, but they were long used to prevent fires and explosions in electrical equipment. PCBs are very stable and considered an environmental hazard because of the amount of harm they are capable of doing. In humans and animals, PCBs have potential carcinogenic and neurological effects as well as harming the immune and reproductive systems.

Many companies produced PCBs in the 1930's and 1940's and because the chemical does not decompose, PCBs are still present in soil and rivers, subsequently ending up in fish and other wildlife. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), PCBs build up in the environment, and larger concentrations are found higher in the food chain. Eating contaminated fish is the most likely way for PCBs to get into the human body. In 1997, the EPA banned the production of PCB's and they were classified as a probable human carcinogen.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous environmental toxic compounds with fused aromatic rings, formed from incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials such as coal and fossil fuels, cigarette smoking, and food cooking.1,2 Non-occupational exposure routes of PAHs include: inhalation airborne PAHs such as polluted air or cigarette smoking, ingestion of PAH-containing food such as charred and broiled meat, as well as dermal absorption.3,4 PAHs can bioaccumulate through the food chain because of its nature of resistant to degradation.5 The adverse health effects of PAHs have been widely studied recently mainly focusing on increasing risks of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and a variety of cancers, including respiratory, renal, and breast cancers.6-15 Recently, several studies suggested an association between ambient air pollution and type 2 diabetes (T2DM), and ambient fine particulate matter (PM) may induce insulin resistance.16-21 Since air pollution as well as smoking and red meat consumption were consistently linked to cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes,22,23 and all of them are important exposure sources of PAHs, it’s biologically plausible that PAHs may play important roles in the relationship between cigarette smoking, ambient air pollution and cardiometabolic diseases.

(A. Snyder, 2003) males that were exposed to these epidemiological hormones while still being a fetus had a decreased sperm quantity when compared to normal males, as well as having changes in their behaviors and developed prostate cancer as well as changes in neuroendocrinology. (A. Snyder, 2003) therefore, there were many concerns against human health raised by micropollutants, where perchlorate being a contaminant that is mainly found in aquatic systems, also affected the thyroid gland of individuals that were exposed to it, causing disease.( A. Snyder, 2003)

The established processes for removal of dissolved and dispersed hydrocarbons from water are bioremediation, membrane

The main sources of contaminant PPCPs are human activity, residues from pharmaceutical manufacturing, hospital waste, illicit drugs, veterinary drug use (especially antibiotics and steroids), agribusiness and sewage effluents (EPA - Environmental Protection Agency). Effluents from sewage treatment plants contain a variety of PPCPs such as clofibric acid, ibuprofen, caffeine and antibiotics, and other chemicals which are not completely removed during treatment and can get in contact with large water bodies systems. Since it is still a raising issue, the effect of exposure (even low-level) to PPCPs in the long term are yet not well understood but it is a matter of concern due to the fact that especially pharmaceuticals are meant to be biologically active,

Plastic pollution has directlyor indirectly caused injuries and deaths ,that scientists have documented. These problems are because of various reasons which include poisoning due to consumption of plastics, suffocation due to entanglement in plastic nets etc. The millions of tons of plastic bottles, bags, and garbage in the world's oceans are breaking down and leaching toxins posing a threat to marine life and humans. Some marine species, such as sea turtles, have been found to contain large proportions of plastics in their stomach.. Income cases small bits of plastics are accidently consumed by animals. by another will cause the plastics to travel up the food chain. This may cause serious health hazards in a wide array of creature(Michelle Allsopp, Adam Walters, David Santillo

Environmental pollution has become a key concern for the environmentalists in the recent years. The amount of undesired and harmful substances introduced into the environment has been on a steady rise; this situation has driven UNEP, WHO and other organizations to issue warnings on impending disaster if nothing is done. Pollutants can be classified as either primary or secondary depending on the manner that they are injected into the environment. In this paper, air and water pollutants are the principle focus. The paper also explores the sources of these pollutants, their effects on the living organisms including humans, and probable measures to mitigate their effects to the environment.

According to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) [28], the contamination of soil by PAHs is widespread in Canada due to the near ubiquitous nature of its major sources: namely, the release of various petroleum hydrocarbon or coal-derived products and the production of PAHs through a variety of combustion processes or types such as vehicle exhaust or a wide variety of industrial processes. Crude oil and refined product spills commonly found at oil and gas well sites are the major overall source of thermodynamically-favoured (petrogenic) PAHs to soils and sediments, especially in urbanized and industrialized areas of Canada [15]. Naphthalene, fluorene, chrysene, phenanthrene, and pyrene are particularly common PAHs in

Organic pollutants are chemical compounds that contain carbon and have a negative effect on one or more components of the environment. From 2011–2015, EAD monitored marine waters for two organic pollutants: total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). TPHs is a term used to describe a mixture of several hundreds of chemical compounds that are derived from crude oil. Measurable background concentrations of TPH can be a result of excess oil contamination or in some cases the result of a natural petroleum seep. High levels of some petroleum hydrocarbons can cause adverse health effects, including benzene, which is a

Water pollution can be potentially harmful to the environment, aquatic ecosystems, food production, and can significantly impact human health. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are manufactured organic compounds containing over 209 types of chlorinated chemicals (Wisconsin Department of Health Services, 2014). Since PCBs are organic compounds, they can be degraded in the environment. PCBs can be broken down by sunlight or biodegrade by microorganisms. However, the degrading process depends on the concentration of the PCBs. The more concentrated the compound is, slower the process will be (National Ocean Service, 2014). PCBs were first utilized for commercial and industrial applications such as electrical insulators, transformers, and appliances. The accumulation of PCBs increased when wastes containing PCBs from manufacturing plants were being placed at landfills (National Ocean Service, 2014). Since the 1970s, manufacturing of PCBs have been banned from Western countries and the United States. In recent decades, reports of PCBs have been surfacing worldwide in soil and aquatic environments (Zheng et al., 2015).

Women are susceptible to the exposure of chemicals (Kumar 2004).due to the spread of chemicals in manufacturing, females exposed to these chemicals are likely to jeopardize their fertility. Therefore, many years ago, evidence has shown the destructive effects of women exposed to chemicals in their reproductive system and the pregnancy outcomes has revealed (Kumar, 2004). So, women exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon experienced unprompted abortion two times more than non-exposed ones.