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Minamata Bay
Chisson company opened: Chemical company for nitrogenous fertilizers -
Minamata Bay
refrigeration , washing machine, television → = chemical waste -
Minamata Bay
Cause of Minamata disease: poisoning from methylmercury from food -
Minamata Bay
Linked the chemical industry with methylmercury poisoning -
Minamata Bay
-Minamata is a small factory town in Japan, dominated by the Chisso factory
-Chisso make petrochemical -based substances from fertilizer to plastics
-Waste water containing methyl-mercury was released into Minamata Bay due to this process
- Between 1932-1986, an estimate of 24 tonnes of mercury and methymelcury was released into Minatamata Bay
-In the 1950s, locals suffered from mercury poisoning. because of the orders-of-magnitude build-up the food chain
-mercury release stopped in 1968 -
Minamata Bay
Chisso stopped dumping mercury -
Environmental impact assessments (EIA)
Environmental impact assessments:
is a report prepared before a development project to change the use of land.
What are EIAs used for?
An EIA is part of a planning process that governments use when large developments are considered. They provide a documented way of examining environmental impacts (are used as evidence in decision making to accept new development or not). EIA's differ from country to country. -
Environmental impact assessments 2 (EIA)
Where did EIAs come from?
comes from the NEPA in 1969
priority to natural environment before planning
What does an EIA need in it?
1. identify in impacts
2. predict scale of potential impacts
3. limit the effect of impacts to acceptable limits
Weakness of EIA:
- different countries have different standards of EIAs; which it makes hard to compare
- hard to determine where the boundary of the investigation should be
- difficult to consider all indirect impacts of a development -
DDT and malarial mosquitoes
- In 1970, the WHO banned the use of DDT
- The question is whether banning DTT did more harm than good
- Malaria kills 2.7 million people a year, mostly children under the age of 5 and infects 300-500 million a year
- The manufacture and use of DDT was banned in the US in 1972
- The use of DDT has since been banned in most other MEDC's but it isn't banned for public health use in most areas of the world where malaria is endemic
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The Montreal Protocol
The discovery of the ozone hole led to a fast response on national and international levels. The Montreal Protocol Protocol was an international agreement made by the UN to phase out the production of the ozone-depleting substances such as CFC(mainly spraycans). One of the most successful international cooperative ventures to date. -
Minamata Bay
Water in minamata bay clean -
The Kyoto Protocol
An international agreement signed in 1997 but only implemented in 2005 sets mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Six main greenhouse gases, namely:
CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)
Aims: to reduce the onset of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to "a level that would prevent dangerous anthropocentric interference with the climate system" Reduce GHG emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012 -
Minamata Bay
1st UNEP report: issues related to mercury -
Minamata Bay
Legally binding document is needed -
Minamata Bay
Minamata convention is established -
Minamata Bay
COP1, COP2
Waste, transport, labour, WHO etc (100 + partners) -
Biomagnification
Biomagnification is when the chemical's concentration is magnified from trophic level to trophic level. While the concentration of the chemical may not affect organisms lower in the food chain, the top trophic level may take in so much of chemical that it causes disease or their death. -
Bioaccumulation
Bioaccumulation happens when a chemical breaks down slowly or doesn't break down in the environment; plants may take it up and animals may take it in. Then if they do not excrete or egest it, it accumulates in their bodies over time. If the chemical stays in the ecosystem for a prolonged period of time the concentration builds up. Eventually, the concentration may be high enough to cause disease or death.