An analysis of the state of the Brazilian chemical industry in 1998 revealed that the actually used technologies were transferred in a period where industrial waste generation, treatment and disposal represented a significant part of total production costs. A not too strict legislation at that time allowed dis-consideration of externalities and poor environmental concern. Environmental management was restricted to the monitoring of the cost and volume of waste disposed in the observance of sanitary inspection rules, without any regard to inadequate process performance. On the micro-environment scale, action was limited to programs of accident prevention and use of individual protection equipment, without adequate monitoring of occupational health and programs for minimizing inherent process risk.
However, rising concerns with the environmental and health impacts of processes have led to stricter rules and monitoring parameters with regard to working conditions and waste disposal. In response, industries started to rethink their production processes with an eye to eliminate or minimize industrial process failures.
As such, new and easily established parameters were needed to subsidize the decision maker's choice of the best way to allocate resources for improving the environmental performance of the process.
(a) Explain fully the potential health hazards associated with industrial waste as applied to the Brazilian chemical industry.
(b) Describe the physical, chemical and biological transformations during solid waste management as applied to the above case-study.