The Bhopal tragedy was a defining moment in the history of the chemical industry. On December 3, 1984, a runaway reaction within a methyl isocyanate storage tank at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant released a toxic gas cloud that killed thousands and injured hundreds of thousands. After Bhopal, industrial chemical plants became a major public concern. Both the public and the chemical industry realized the necessity of improving chemical process safety.
Bhopal served as a wake-up call. To prevent the same event from occurring in the United States, many legislative and industrial changes were invoked—one of which was formation of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). The ultimate goal of CSB is to use the lessons learned and recommendations from its investigations to achieve positive change within the chemical industry—preventing incidents and saving lives.
Although it seems clear that the lessons learned at Bhopal have improved chemical plant safety, CSB investigations indicate that the systemic problems identified at Bhopal remain the underlying causes of many incidents. These include:
• Lack of awareness of reactive hazards.
• Lack of management of change.
• Inadequate plant design and maintenance.
• Ineffective employee training.
• Ineffective emergency preparedness and community notification.
• Lack of root cause incident investigations and communication of lessons learned.
The aim of this paper is to present common themes from recent cases investigated by CSB and to discuss how these issues might be best addressed in the future.
This paper has not been independently approved by the Board and is published for general informational purposes only. Any material in the paper that did not originate in a Board-approved report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent an official finding, conclusion, or position of the Board. 相似文献
Mercury, as a global pollutant, has significant impacts on the environment and human health. The current state of atmospheric mercury emissions, pollution and control in China is comprehensively reviewed in this paper. With about 500-800 t of anthropogenic mercury emissions, China contributes 25%-40% to the global mercury emissions. The dominant mercury emission sources in China are coal combustion, non-ferrous metal smelting, cement production and iron and steel production. The mercury emissions from natural sources in China are equivalent to the anthropogenic mercury emissions. The atmospheric mercury concentration in China is about 2-10 times the background level of North Hemisphere. The mercury deposition fluxes in remote areas in China are usually in the range of 10-50μg·m^-2·yr^-1. To reduce mercury emissions, legislations have been enacted for power plants, non-ferrous metal smelters and waste incinerators. Currently mercury contented in the flue gas is mainly removed through existing air pollution control devices for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particles. Dedicated mercury control technologies are required in the future to further mitigate the mercury emissions in China. 相似文献