Environmental Contamination and Regulation

Abstract

Environmental contamination as a result of human activities is not a recent phenomenon. Cicero first related structural damage of buildings and statues in Rome to smoky rains of wood and charcoal burning about 2100 years BP (Eney and Petzold, 1987). Some of the detrimental effects by mining activities on human health had been recognized a long time ago. The Romans used slaves to extract cinnabar (a Hg-containing ore) at the Almaden mine in Spain. Due to acute Hg exposure, the miner’s life expectancy was only about three years (Wren et al., 1995). Peat cores from a Swiss bog indicate that As, Sb, and Pb fluxes due to anthropogenic activities have been exceeding natural fluxes for more than 2000 years (Shotyk et al., 1998). The present enrichment factors in this bog are in the order of 20 times for Sb, 70 for Sb, and 130 for Pb. Modifications of the natural cycles of metals have led to a situation in which the inputs of metals in soils generally exceed the removal due to harvest of agricultural crops and the losses by leaching, volatilization, etc. (Jones, 1991; Van Driel and Smilde, 1990). The Industrial Revolution started in the mid-1800s and the large use of coal to produce energy caused the release of considerable amounts of gas, e.g., CO2, SOx, NOx, and fly ash into the atmosphere. Since then, the biogeochemical cycles of inorganic contaminants (e.g., metals) naturally present in the environment have been largely accelerated by human activities. The conversion of the world’s economy from coal to oil, initiated between the two world wars, enlarged the range of contaminants released in the environment to organic compounds, e.g., PAHs.