This volume of proceedings reviews the status of risks entailed in the manufacture, handling, use and disposal of the chemicals on which we all depend and suggests further action for the protection of both the workplace and the natural environment.

The tragic incident at Bhopal, India made it clear that safetyreviews for identification and control of accidents involving toxicchemicals must be more systematic. This guide shows how tointegrate hazard identification, risk assessment, consequenceanalysis, and risk mitigation into a formalized program forhandling hazardous chemicals. Most of the 21 contributors aresenior staff members at Stone & Webster EngineeringCorporation. They discuss how to perform and supervise safetystudies for chemical, petrochemical, petroleum refining, and otherfacilities. They discuss all aspects of detection, prevention, andmitigation of risks associated with processing, handling, andproduction of hazardous chemicals. Special attention is given tohazard identification and hazard assessment techniques ranging fromsimple screening checklists to highly structured Hazard andOperability (HAZOP) analysis. You're shown how to calculatepotential consequences of identified hazards, quantify thelikelihood of these events, and combine equipment failure rate dataand human reliability analysis with hazard assessment. You'll alsobenefit from the book's rundowns of how to * apply expert systems and artificial intelligence in riskmanagement * instill safety-oriented operating and maintenanceprocedures * train operators and emergency response personnel * conduct internal and external safety audits * perform chemical dispersion, explosion, and fire analyses * assess health effects from chemical releases * use insurance vehicles to deal with residual risk. Risk Assessment and Risk Management for the Chemical ProcessIndustry is an essential source on minimizing the dangers of toxicincidents and accidents. It is essential reading for safetyengineers, regulatory managers, environmental engineers, and otherprofessionals responsible for safety in chemical plants.

The key to successfully ensuring adequate protection of life, health, property, and the environment whenever and wherever hazardous chemicals are used is information. Having the right information, readily available, in easy-to-read, non-technical, language can literally save a life. It can also prevent costly and devastating environmental contamination or property loss. However, anyone who have practiced in the field of occupational or environmental safety and health has been frustrated by the lack of available information. Risk Management for Hazardous Chemicals has been compiled to provide quick and accurate reference information for those who work with chemicals. It allows them to accomplish their duties more effectively, efficiently, and with more confidence. It is intended for anyone who needs to know about methods and procedures for managing the risks associated with using hazardous chemicals, including:

The Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established the "Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society" (CCMS) in 1969. The CCMS was charged with developing meaningful environmental and social programmes for solving existing problems and developing long-range goals for environmental protection. In 1983, at the Fall Plenary of the CCMS, the Norwegian delegate Dr. H.C. Christensen, proposed a Pilot Study on "Risk Management of Chemicals in the Environment". A draft proposal, written by Dr. Kari Kveseth of the Center for Industrial Research in Oslo, was presented. Dr. Christensen also informed the participants at the meeting that Norway was willing to act as the Pilot Country. The project was initially planned for 3 years, but it was later extended through 1987. The inaugural meeting was held in Oslo in April 1984 with participants from Denmark, Greece, France and Italy, in addition to representatives from several Norwegian institutions. The attendees concluded that a Pilot Study, as delineated in the draft proposal, would be useful, and it was decided to work out a detailed project plan based on the proposal.

In fact, with the control and containment of most infectious conditions and diseases of the past millennium having been achieved in most developed countries, and with the resultant increase in life expectancies, much more attention seems to have shifted to degenerative health problems. Many of the degenerative health conditions have been linked to thousands of chemicals regularly encountered in human living and occupational/work environments. It is important, therefore, that human health risk assessments are undertaken on a consistent basis - in order to determine the potential impacts of the target chemicals on public health.

The risk management of chemicals represents an international challenge. It occupied a prominent place on Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The development and harmonization of risk assessment methods are a necessary prerequisite to successful risk management. The book provides an introduction to the risk management of chemicals. It contains basic background information on sources and emissions, distribution and fate processes, toxicology and ecotoxicology and estimation methodologies. It describes basic principles and methodologies for hazard and risk assessment of chemicals in the context of the legislative framework. This Introduction contains essential information for students of the environmental sciences and for those professionally involved in the rapidly developing field of risk assessment and management of chemicals. It also supports the Uniform System for the Evaluation of Substances (USES), a computerized risk assessment system.

This book is an essential guide and support to understanding of the science and policy, procedure and practice that underpins the REACH risk assessments required for the use and placing on the market of chemicals in the European Union. A clear understanding of information provision and how this affects the assessment of chemical safety is fundamentally important to the success of policy on chemicals and ultimately to the sustainability of the chemicals industry. Within the book, the scientific processes that underpin the policy are explained in a practical way. Importantly, it includes coverage of techniques to help solve the problems of using potentially risky and hazardous chemicals through the use of less hazardous alternatives and ‘green chemistry’, and also the analysis of the risks of the use of the most hazardous substances against the social and economic benefits of use. Chemical Risk Assessment: A Manual for REACH covers the following main themes: i) Assessment of chemical risk; ii) Risk management; iii) Hazard reduction, substitution and green chemistry; iv) Risk versus benefit – socio-economic analysis. The book acts as a practical guide and overview to chemicals risk assessment and risk management (in the EU context), as well as a support text for planning for the challenges of the future, which will see ever-increasing pressure to withdraw hazardous substances from the EU (and global) market, balanced against opportunities for innovation in the development of less hazardous chemicals.

All industrial countries have developed regulatory systems to assess and manage the risk of chemical substances to the working and natural environment. The pressure to harmonize these often specialized regulatory systems is increasingly strong at the international level. Such harmonization not only entails the assessment of particular chemicals, but also the way assessment procedures and their boundary with risk management is organized. As these initiatives intensify, they increasingly raise important questions of how to integrate national differences in the international regulatory arena. How will national consultation procedures relate to international decision-making on chemical risks? How will differences in national risk assessment procedures be accommodated? How will the international regulatory system be integrated with different national styles of regulation and government? Presenting the experiences and insights of both people from within the worlds of risk assessment and management and from the field of Science Studies, this book forms a state-of-the-art in the discussion on the Politics of Chemical Risk. By offering scenarios, or sketches of a regulatory future, it points to the choices that can be made and the opportunities to be explored. As such, it offers an agenda for environmental and occupational scientists, policy-makers and students of science and technology alike.

Well-documented, organized and written for ready comprehension, this new book covers managerial, legal and financial strategies that are or can be employed to manage the health risks posed by technology. It demonstrates how each strategy is used and which ones are more valuable to decision-makers in different situations. More than a dozen laws are reviewed through the legislative process, providing a clear understanding of governmental processes for risk management. Non-regulatory and regulatory approaches to risk management are covered from both a theoretical and practical perspective. New financial instruments that reduce or prevent consequences of chemical risks are examined. Serves a dual purpose: GOVERNMENTAL MANAGEMENT of CHEMICAL RISK first provides a comprehensive coverage of components of risk management; second, it analyzes, through case studies, emerging patterns of use of risk management techniques to determine what makes a success or failure. This book deals with: