Administrando o controle da poluiçäo: o papel do auditor ambiental / Administering pollution control: the role of the environmental officer

Mapel dos orgäos públicos no controle da poluiçäo ambiental. Definiçäo de auditor ambiental. Formaçäo e funçöes do auditor ambiental. Exemplos de atuaçäo do auditor ambiental. Trabalho desvinculado de consultoras. Preço reduzido de seus serviços.

Políticas ambientais empresariais / Business environmental policies

Apresenta uma descriçäo do processo de desenvolvimento industrial do Brasil e o conseqüente agravamento da questäo ambiental. Descreve ainda a criaçäo dos organismos ambientais e as principais legislaçöes de controle ambiental introduzidas no país. Abordaram-se a filosofia e os conceitos de gerenciamento ambiental atualmente utilizados pela indústria. Säo descritos e comentados os principais instrumentos de gerenciamento: política ambiental empresarial; organizaçäo ambiental nas empresas; auditorias ambientais; monitoramento ambiental; análise e gerenciamento de risco e tecnologias para o controle ambiental. A busca do desenvolvimento econômico com a preservaçäo ambiental tem conduzido a indústria brasileira a adotar práticas de gerenciamento ambiental capazes de controlar e minimizar os seus impactos. Neste sentido, procurou-se resumir a atuaçäo de alguns setores industriais, entre os quais se destacam os de mineraçäo, produçäo de alumínio, químico e petroquímico, siderúrgico, de ferro-ligas, e de produçäo de papel celulose. Säo descritas, também, algumas experiências de entrosamento do setor privado com entidades ambientalistas em projetos de preservaçäo ambiental.

Present status and trends in biological monitoring of exposure to industrial chemicals.

This paper describes the current practice of biological monitoring of populations exposed to occupational or environmental pollutants. The three types of monitoring are ambient monitoring, biological monitoring of exposure, and health surveillance (also called biological monitoring of effects). The trend in biological monitoring today is to develop tests that provide information on the amount of chemical bound to the critical sites of action (target dose). Ambient monitoring and biological monitoring assess the health risk by comparing the current exposure with the permissible exposure limits. They are essentially preventive activities. By contrast, health surveillance or biological monitoring of effects assesses the health status and aims at detecting the early adverse health effects. Health surveillance is part of the medical screening program for the early detection of health impairment due to industrial chemicals.

Drinking water and health hazards in environmental perspective.

Among the present environmental issues drinking water quality and more specifically organic micropollutants receive not the highest priority. The long tradition of potable water quality assurance and the sophisticated evaluation methodologies provide a very useful approach which has great potential for wider application in environmental research and policy making. Water consumption patterns and the relative importance of the drinking water exposure route show that inorganic water contaminants generally contribute much more to the total daily intake than organic micropollutants. An exception is chloroform and probably the group of typical chlorination by-products. Among the carcinogenic organic pollutants in drinking water only chlorination by-products may potentially increase the health risk. Treatment should therefore be designed to reduce chemical oxidant application as much as possible. It is expected that in the beginning of next century organic micropollutants will receive much less attention and that the present focus on treatment by-products will shift to distribution problems. Within the total context of water quality monitoring microbiological tests will grow in relative importance and might once again dominate chemical analysis the next century. As disinfection is the central issue of the present water treatment practice the search for the ideal disinfection procedure will continue and might result in a further reduction in the use of chemical oxidants.

Biological monitoring of workers exposed to organic solvents--past and present.

The development of biological monitoring for persons exposed to organic solvents is described. The advantages of this supervision strategy, as well as the reservation against it, are discussed. With the target organs of organic solvents, matrices and parameters for biological monitoring taken into consideration, the following recommendations can be given: the determination of solvent level in blood or alveolar air as a substitute is obligatory for the biological monitoring of organic solvents (the toxic stress of the target organ--the brain--is reflected this way); metabolites have to be determined also when they or their predecessors impair other organs. The discussion of chemical analysis, interference and influencing factors, as well as biological limit values, leads to suggestions of how to interpret the results of biological monitoring. Beyond the estimation of the health risk of the individual worker, the results also have to be interpreted on a group basis. Only in this way can all information on biological monitoring be used to the advantage of prevention. In summary, today biological monitoring is possible for most of the organic solvents. Estimation of health risk in the case of simultaneous exposure to several solvents is still not possible. Parameters measuring toxic strain must be established. The various social groups have to be convinced of the advantages of biological monitoring.