Why Should Scientists Study The Effect of Chemicals on The Environment?

Doing chemical experiments should be fun because we can learn how the chemicals react with other components and see how it goes. It also sometimes give us the best experiences when we found something new and being proud of it.

But many scientist and students who do their experiments in the laboratory or even engineers in industries do not consider about chemical wastes of doing chemical experiments. So do you know the side effects that emerge when we produce or do the chemical experiments?

Environmental pollution are caused by many effects, but mostly it because of industrial wastes and chemicals waste. Industrial wastes and environmental pollution increase with increasing and diverse industries and chemicals innovations while infrastructure for treating wastes is not growing rapidly, and is considers to increase costs. There are some types of chemical wastes, which are air (mainly from fuel combustion), wastewater (process water such as cooling heating and solvent), and solid waste (impurities of raw material, side product and defect product). You may also find out about List of Chemists Who Started Organic Chemistry

Industries in treating wastes use water that obtained from the water treatment system for a variety of purposes, so do chemical wastes that use by scientist, such as for manufacturing goods, heating, cooling, as carrier of raw material, carrier of waste matter, and as a solvent after used the water then classified as a wastewater. The indiscriminate discharge of these wastewater streams into the environment can be:

1. Render soils “sick”

Analytically the total solids content of a chemical wastes are defined as all the matter that remains as residue upon evaporation at 103 to 105 °C. The total solids composed of floating matter, settle able matter, colloidal matter, and matter in solution.

When harmful chemicals are polluted into the soil, it will obviously damage the good ingredients contained on it. Chemical waste has a lot of harmful substances that can damage soil fertility. You may also find out about Effects of Oxidizing Chemicals for Environmental Health.

2. Pollute the receiving bodies of water

Water pollution is the main problem we are facing right now. Water pollution is any chemical, biological and physical change in water quality that has a harmful effect on human being and the environment. The massive quantity of pollutants produced by billion humans, their machines, plants, and animals.

The limited supply of fresh water into which most water-destined pollutants are discharge, and also the number of “technological pollutants” released into the environment, for example manufactures synthetic materials. The presence of these substances has complicated industrial wastewater and chemical wastes treatment because many of them either cannot be or are very slowly decomposed biologically. You may also find out about Effects of Environmental Chemicals to Human Health

Typical of organic compounds in industrial wastewater and also can be found in chemical wastes include fats, oil, grease, surfactants, phenol, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pesticeds and agricultural chemicals. 

3. Causes air pollution by generating obnoxious gases.

Discharge untreated chemical wastes into domestic sewer system make the task of treating domestic sewage, a very difficult and costly exercise. To prevent any health hazards caused by discharging chemical wastes into the environment and protect domestic sewage, the chemical wastes must be treated before discharge.

The reasons that have already explained above is obviously make us conscious to be more care about our environment. And it’s clearly answered the question why should scientists the effect of chemical waste on environment. You may also find out about Harmful Chemicals in the Environment

We also have to be aware the important contaminants in chemical waste treatment, such as suspended solids which are lead to the development of sludge deposits and anaerobic conditions when untreated wastewater is discharged into the aquatic environment. When the nutrients (P, N, and C) discharged into the aquatic environment, these nutrients can lead to the growth of undesirable aquatic life. When discharged in excessive amounts on land, they can also lead to the pollution of ground water.

Pollutants are required as organic and inorganic compounds that selected on the basic of their known or suspected carcinogenicity or high acute toxicity. Many of these compounds are found in chemical wastes and also found in wastewater. Besides, we have to consider on refractory organics, because these organics tend to resist conventional methods of wastewater and chemical wastes treatment. Typical example of these organics compound include surfactants, phenols, and agricultural pesticides.

Heavy metals are usually discharged to wastewater and chemical wastes from commercial and industrial activities and have to be removed if the wastewater is to be reused, inorganic constituents (dissolved inorganic) such as calcium, sodium, and sulphate are added to the original domestic water supply as a result of water use and may have to be removed if the wastewater and chemical wastes are to be reused. You may also find out about Importance of Chemistry in Environment

From the explanations above we have to consider and learn how to manage chemical wastes and be more aware about the impacts on the environments. Indeed, that’s the reasons why should scientists study the effect of chemicals on the environment.