Recognising environmental hazards

When managing an environmental protection programme, it is important to understand what is meant by the term Environment.

The ENVIRONMENT is the area surrounding a site, and includes air, water, land, natural resources, plants, animals, humans, and their interrelation. 

The environment can be broken down into its various components or media.  Environmental media are simply the systems that make up the environment – air, groundwater, soil, surface water, plant and animal life.  

These media are like the systems of the body; if they are harmed, the overall environment is harmed as well.  The table on the next page lists typical facilities/operations and shows typical environmental problems associated with these operations and the media that can be affected.  

It is a fairly straight forward process to identify potential environmental problems through awareness of the aspects of operations that can impact the environment.

There are three broad classes of environmental hazards namely:

• Chemical
• Physical, and
• Biological

Each of these classes is discussed below.

Chemical hazards include such things as:

• Solids
• Liquids
• Airborne mists.
• Vapours
• Gases
• Dusts, and
• Fumes

Environmental exposures usually occur in the form of liquid discharges of toxic substances such as:

• Toluene
• Xylene
• Methylene chloride and others

These are found in processes and waste water, as well as storm water run-off, and emissions to the atmosphere in the form of:

• Sulphur dioxide.
• Carbon monoxide.
• Carbon dioxide.
• Nitrogen oxides.
• Ozone (including volatile organic compounds (VOC’s). (Refer to the “Note” on the next page for a description of VOC’s.)
• Smoke, and
• Particulates which can include metals such as lead, tin, zinc, nickel, vanadium and others.

PHYSICAL HAZARDS include such things as noise generated by a site which affects the external environment and people around an operation.  Heating the air and water around an operation, vibration, and radiation exposures, both non-ionising (such as microwaves, infrared, lasers, ultra-violet and radio waves) and ionising radiation (x-rays) are all examples.

BIOLOGICAL HAZARDS include living organisms used or generated at a site that can contaminate the environment.  These include such things as moulds, fungi, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, (single celled organisms) and helminths (worms).  

Biological agents (infectious diseases) are relatively rare sources of environmental pollution.  However, many operations generate biohazards requiring proper disposal.  Legionella may exist in cooling towers, domestic hot water systems, air-conditioning etc and biocides e.g. chlorine are used in many treatment processes.

Operations that should be especially concerned with their environmental pollution potentials include:

• Nitric acid plants
• Metal furniture surface coating operations
• Petroleum products dry cleaners
• Petroleum products refineries and storage operations
• Printing plants
• Sulphuric acid plants
• Synthetic fibre production plants
• Chemical manufacturers
• Iron and steel smelting plants

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic chemical compounds that have high enough vapour pressures under normal conditions to significantly vaporize and enter the atmosphere.  (The term VOC is also occasionally used as an abbreviation, especially in biological contexts, for “volatile organic carbon”.) A wide range of carbon-based molecules, such as aldehydes, ketones, and hydrocarbons are VOC’s.  The term often is used in a legal or regulatory context and in such cases the precise definition is a matter of law.  

When recognising environmental hazards there are two terms commonly used namely:

• Environmental aspects, and
• Environmental impacts.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS are any element of a site’s activities, products, or services which can interact with the environment.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS are any changes to the environment resulting from a site’s activities, products, or services.

Impacts to the environment result from:

• Air emissions.
• Process and waste water discharges.
• Waste (solid and liquid) generated (hazardous and non-hazardous).
• Soil contamination.
• Habitat destruction.
• Energy and raw material consumption.

From a technical standpoint, environmental impacts can be either harmful or beneficial; however, since this module deals with preventing harm to the environment, the focus will be on impacts that cause harm.

While routine methods for recognising environmental hazards aren’t as sophisticated and rigorous as formal assessments by qualified professionals, they still go a long way toward identifying obvious environmental hazards that need to be controlled.   

The specific activities that are most effective include:

• Planned inspections. Being aware of the three types of environmental hazards and developing checklists to help identify them.
• Task and process analysis. Being aware of the three types of environmental hazards and identifying potential hazards associated with a task, considering environmental hazards, including guidelines or written aids on the analysis worksheet as a reminder of what to look for. 
• Committees and special teams. Intentionally calling for committee members or teams to systematically review the worksite and working processes to develop a list of aspects of the work that could have an effect on the environment. 
• Survey employees. Asking employees about environmental hazards they are concerned about.
• Change reviews. Ensuring change reviews take place when any changes to equipment; processes and material are implemented, (excluding replacements in kind).  A Preliminary Hazard Assessment (PHA) checklist including safety, health, and environmental considerations is shown in the table below

The nature of environmental hazards is such that there should be formal methods used to complement the routine methods discussed.  Many environmental hazards can only be identified by using formal sampling and surveying techniques.  Environmental hazards and impact assessments are completed by competent environmental professionals using a systematic approach.  These assessments use checklists and occasionally computer models to aid them in identifying hazards and the impacts they could have on the surrounding environment.  Typical activities in these studies include:

• Identifying all sources of exposures by developing process maps, water and sewer diagrams, actual and potential emission points etc.
• Reviewing regulatory requirements related to the exposures.
• Sampling the discharges and emissions to see if they fall within recommended regulatory limits.
• Evaluating the potential probable impacts.
• Developing action plans to control hazards to acceptable levels consistent with regulatory requirements and recommended practices.

While there are numerous formal techniques for identifying environmental aspects, hazards and the impacts which they could have on the environment, the three most commonly used are:

1. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs).
2. Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs), and
3. Hazard and Operability Reviews (HazOps).

Each of these methods identify:

1. Aspects of a site’s operations that could impact the environment through continuous releases.

2. Specific environmental hazards that could lead to an impact.

3. The chances of loss and potential frequency or likelihood of having an environmental incident.

4. Planned and existing operations.

HazOps are considered more effective in assessing present operations, whereas Life cycle analysis (LCAs) and Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) have the advantage of considering liabilities resulting from past activities.  Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and a site should select the technique that best meets its needs.  An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the likely human environmental health impact, risk to ecological health, and changes to nature’s services that a project may have. The purpose of the assessment is to ensure that decision-makers consider environmental impacts before deciding whether to proceed with new projects.  A life cycle analysis is the assessment of the environmental impact of a given product or service throughout its lifespan.