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This article provides information about “How Toxic Chemical or Releases of Many Synthetic Chemical Pose a Global Threat to Human Health and Environment !
Toxic chemicals in our environment threaten our rivers and lakes, our air, land, and oceans, and ultimately ourselves and our future. The production, trade, use, and release of many synthetic chemicals are now widely recognised as a global threat to human health and the environment.
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Yet, the world’s chemical industries continue to produce and release thousands of chemical compounds every year, in most cases with none or very little testing and understanding of their impacts on people and the environment. Governments and industry have failed to control the spread of dangerous chemicals around the globe. So widespread are manmade hazardous chemicals in our environment, in our homes and in the products we use every day, that we are constantly exposed to polluting substances. As a result even our own bodies are contaminated.
Expansion of the global market for electrical and electronic products continues to accelerate, while the lifespan of the products is dropping, resulting in a corresponding explosion in electronic scrap. UNEP reports in every year 20-50 million electrical or electronic equipment waste (e-waste) are generated worldwide, which bring serious risks to human health and environment. This rapidly growing “e-waste” stream presents additional difficulties because a wide range of hazardous chemicals are, or have in the past been, used in components of electrical and electronic devices, and these subsequently create substantial problems with regard to handling, recycling and disposal of obsolete products.
Greenpeace analyses of the man-made hazardous chemicals in consumer products, house dust, rainwater and blood add to the growing documentation that man-made chemicals are out of control, threatening our health and environment. It urges international community to substitute hazardous chemicals with safer materials. The European Union (EU), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and several states of the USA have introduced legislation making producers responsible for their end- of-life products. The EU has banned the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic products from July 2006, to facilitate safer recycling. For the present, however, the “e-waste” recycling sector in many parts of Asia remains largely unregulated.