Assignment Code: MEVE-004/TMA-01/2022-23

Course Code: MEVE-004

Assignment Name: Industrial Sector

Year: 2022-2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Maximum Marks 100

Attempts any five questions. All questions carry equal marks

5x20=100

1. Describe the sources and types of pollutants in the tanning industry and their health impacts.

Ans) The sources and types of pollutants in the tanning industry and their health impacts are:

Organic Matter: The organic matter in tannery waste is made up of proteins and carbohydrates, which break down over time.

Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S): This is a poisonous gas that smells bad and smells like rotten eggs. In tanneries, H2S is given off in the liming yard and the anaerobic lagoons.

Chromium Salts: The most common tanning agent is chromium basic sulphate. About 30 percent of the salt that was in the chromium tannage is still there. Chromium tannage is a toxic pollutant, and the salts in it make it hard to get rid of. Chromium is a micronutrient, and Cr salts like chromium polynicotine, chromium chloride, and chromium picolinate have been shown to help animals and people in many ways.

Odour: The smells and odours that come from tanneries are toxic and hard to stand. Some of the other pollutants are sulphide, ammonia, and other volatile compounds that are made when leather is processed.

Solid wastes: The leather industry makes solid wastes like animal skin trims, animal hairs, waste flesh, dust, and waste keratin. All of the above wastes make the environment dirty. The majority of these solids are leftover protein. When wastes that need a lot of oxygen are dumped directly into surface waters, oxygen levels drop. This hurts the lives of many plants, bacteria, fish, and other organisms that need oxygen to live. Because of this, organisms that don't need oxygen, or anaerobic organisms, live in the water. This makes the water toxic.

Sulphide: The sulphide in tannery effluent comes from the use of sodium sulphide and sodium hydrosulphide, as well as the breakdown of hair during the dehairing process. Sulphide gas can hurt your eyes and, in high enough amounts, kill you.

Neutral salts: There are usually two kinds of neutral salts in the wastewater from a tannery. Sulphates and chlorides are what they are. Sulphates are found in the wastewater from tanneries. They come from the use of sulphuric acid or products with a lot of sodium sulphate. As a by-product of making many chemicals that are used in tanning, sodium sulphate is made. For example, chrome tanning powders and artificial tanners have a lot of sodium sulphate in them. Chloride is put into tannery wastewater as sodium chloride because a lot of this salt is used to preserve hides and skins or to pickle them. Since they are easily dissolved and stable, effluent treatment has no effect on them. This makes them a cause of pollution. This salt can get into the groundwater, especially in places with a lot of factories. This is now a very serious environmental problem.

Oils and grease: When leather is made, natural oils and grease come out of the skin. These gather together and stick to other things, which pollutes the environment. Polluted surface waters make it harder for oxygen to move from the air to the water and create a very high demand for oxygen.

Other metals: Aluminium and zirconium are two other metals that can come out of tanneries. The presence of other organic matter, complexing agents, and the pH of the water can also change how dangerous they are.

3. Describe the sources of pollutants from the textile industry and their impacts on the environment and human health.

Ans) Sources and Type of Pollutants

Pollutants in the air: Textile mills give off gaseous emissions that make the air dirty. Boilers, ovens, storage tanks, wastewater treatment plants that use solvents, warehouses, spills, thermo packs, and diesel generators that make gaseous pollutants and suspended particulate matter can all be sources of air emissions. From boilers, nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides are made in textile mills. Pollutants are also put into the air by processes like finishing resin, drying, printing, dying, preparing fabric, and wastewater treatment plants. Drying ovens and high temperature drying/curing processes release hydrocarbons, mineral oils, formaldehyde, acids, softeners, and other volatile compounds.

Water Pollutants: Several mills dump millions of gallons of toxic, dangerous effluents that are full of chemicals, dyes, sulphur, naphthol, vat dyes, nitrates, acetic acid, soaps, chromium compounds, and heavy metals like copper, arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, cobalt, and certain auxiliary chemicals. There may also be dye fixing agents made with formaldehyde, softeners made with hydrocarbons, and dyeing chemicals that don't break down. Solvents are given off when dyes are made and when wastewater treatment plants clean up the water. Carriers are used when dyes are spread out in batches. During the heat setting, drying, or curing stages, these cause aqueous chemical emulsions to evaporate. Pollutants in the water depend on where the products are made. Salts, surfactants, ionic metals and their metal complexes, toxic organic chemicals, biocides, and toxic anions are all examples of pollutants.

Impacts on the Environment and Human Health

Chemicals, dyes, and health: The textile effluent causes major health problems in people. Most of the dyes that are used are known to cause cancer. Chemicals like volatile organic carbons (VOCs) are released into the air when they evaporate. This can make it hard to breathe and cause skin allergies. Copper, arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, nickel, and cobalt do not break down in nature. They can build up in the organs, which is bad for the organs. It can make it hard to breathe, control the amount of water in the body, reproduce, and even kill the organism.

Noise and health: Spinning looms can make up to 94–99 decibels of noise. It depends on the style, the type of loom, and the size of the room. There is also almost 99 decibels of noise in the weaving section. The noise comes and goes. A lot of people have ear pain, otitis, problems with the ear canal, and so on. The workers' work performance is worse, they can't sleep, they are irritable, their central nervous system is activated, their blood pressure goes up, their heart rates go up, and there are metabolic effects.

Dust, fibres, and health: Dust and fibres from the textile industry can be harmful to your health. Byssinosis is a lung disease that is caused by the cotton dust. Asbestosis and other lung diseases are caused by breathing in asbestos dust. Because they are exposed to a lot of dust from the fibres, which is different depending on the type of fibre, they get a lot of respiratory problems. The fibre dust could have fibres of different lengths, which could affect your health in different ways. At the mesothelial lining, the fibres that are longer than 8m get stuck. It's important that Mg2+ ions are on the fibres because they can cause cancer. The fibre dusts also cause oxidative stress, which is an imbalance between the amount of reactive oxygen species and the body's ability to get rid of them. Asbestosis is caused by breathing in asbestos fibres. It has been said that asbestos fibres release reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, which can cause DNA to become oxidised and nitrosylated.

Health effects of gaseous pollutants: Sulphur dioxide can irritate the lungs and lead to bronchitis. Aldehydes are irritating to the lungs. Chlorine can hurt your lungs and eyes. When carbon dioxide gas binds to haemoglobin, it stops the cells from getting oxygen. This makes people lose consciousness and have trouble breathing.

5. Discuss the types of wastes generated by the pharmaceutical and paper and pulp industry. Explain their effects on health and environment.

Ans) The types of wastes generated by the pharmaceutical industry:

1. Dangerous waste is trash that is bad for people's health or the environment. Drugs that have an LD50 (lethal dose), drugs that suppress the immune system, drugs that kill viruses, some bioengineered drugs, and other drugs, etc. Chemotherapy waste (used vials, bags, and IV tubes), chemotherapy agents, etc.

2. Non-hazardous waste: It is non-hazardous trash that needs to be thrown away in a certain way. Vials, bottles, IV bags, pills, and capsules that haven't been used or have only been used partially.

Different ways allow pharmaceutical waste to get into the environment. Most pharmaceutical products end up in the environment because of how API and drug products are made, how the body gets rid of them, and how people throw away unwanted medications. Humans and animals who take drugs leave behind chemicals that end up in water (urine, faecal matter, vomit etc). Most pharmaceutical drugs don't get broken down in the body. Instead, they are excreted into the environment. So, both the urine and poop of people and animals who take medicine contain pharmaceutical residues and are responsible for putting them into the environment. In addition to this, unused or expired drugs that are thrown away in the wrong way pollute the environment. Especially in India, where most people live, unused or expired medicines are thrown away in the trash or flushed down the toilet.

The types of wastes generated by the paper and pulp industry:

1) Water effluents

a) Suspended solids including bark particles, fibre, pigments and dirt.

b)  Dissolved colloidal organics like hemicelluloses, sugars, lignin compounds, alcohols, turpentine, sizing agents, adhesives like starch and synthetics.

c) Colour bodies, primarily lignin compounds and dyes.

d) Dissolved inorganics such as NaOH, Na2SO4 and bleach chemicals.

e) Thermal loads.

f) Microorganisms such as coliform group.

g) Toxic chemicals

2) Gases

a) Malodorous sulphur gases such as mercaptans and H2S released from various stages in Kraft pulping and recovery process.

b) Oxide of sulphur from power plants, kraft recovery furnace and lime kiln.

c) Steam.

3) Particulates

a) Fly ash from coal fired power boilers.

b) Chemical particles primarily sodium and calcium based.

c) Char from bark burners.

4) Solid wastes

a) Sludges from primary and secondary treatment and causticizing in kraft mill recovery section.

b) Solids such as grit bark and other mill wastes.

c) Ash from coal fired boilers.

The clearest link between the paper industry and the environment is the fact that it poses a serious threat to the forest cover. Another big problem is that the wastewater from its industries is very toxic and ends up in the groundwater of nearby areas. Obviously, it needs to be thrown away. In the past, many factories used traditional aerobic treatment plants to clean their wastewater. These plants used bacteria to do this. But it was found that aerobic treatment takes a lot of energy over time. Now, the new anaerobic digestion process does most of the treatment and also makes biogas as a by-product. This process uses less energy and cuts a paper mill's energy use in half. It also reduces the mill's need for fuel by about 15% because biogas can be used instead.

6. Write short note on:

a) Industrial hazards

Ans) There are four main types of dangers in the workplace. This is because industries use many different processes that use a wide range of different raw materials, intermediates, waste products, and final products. There are risks of fire, explosion, toxic waste release, and damage to the environment.

Fire: This is the most common danger, but it usually doesn't cause as much damage. Most of the time, fire hurts people by burning their skin. How bad the burn is depends on how long the person was in the fire and how hot it was. The smoke from a fire can also contain dangerous chemicals like acrolein, carbon monoxide, and cyanides. Structures can be damaged by how hot it is or by what happens when it burns. It could also affect important things like power and instrumentation, which could make the situation worse.

Explosion: Most explosions are heard as a loud "bang" from far away. This is what a shock wave does. This overpressure can kill people, but it's usually the indirect effects, like buildings falling down and sending glass and other things flying, that kill and hurt a lot more people. Explosions come in many forms, such as gas explosions and dust explosions. Gas explosions happen when a gas that can catch fire mixes with air and is then exposed to something that can start a fire. Dust explosions happen when fine powders of flammable solids, especially metals, are mixed with a lot of air and then set on fire.

Toxic/Chemical Release: Sudden releases of toxic vapours can kill or seriously hurt people miles away from the point of release. Both water and air carry them. Their release into public sewers, rivers, canals, and other waterways, either directly or through contaminated water used to fight fires, can pose a serious threat to the public. The number of people who die depends on the weather, how many people live in the path of the cloud, and how well the emergency plans work.

Damage to the environment: Hazards like fire, explosions, and toxic releases can hurt people, kill people, and damage property. They can also be a serious threat to the environment. Major pollution problems can be caused by the release of other substances that are not directly harmful to people. Damage to natural resources, like plants and animals, is becoming more and more clear to people. This can have serious long-term effects. For example, cutting down trees makes global warming worse, and when animals go extinct, it messes up food webs and makes pests more common.

b) Industrial safety and Management

Ans) Industrial safety management is the process of making and keeping a workplace that is both safe and productive. You use it to keep both the people and the things in the facility safe by reducing risks. Without good safety management, you risk accidents and downtime that wasn't planned. Industrial safety management helps you keep your facility safe for everyone and everything. Safety management helps you avoid unplanned downtime and legal liabilities, both of which cost you time and money. No matter what industry you work in, the goal of industrial safety management is to keep accidents from happening at work. Being safe pays off in more ways than one.

1. First, you can avoid the costs that come with accidents on the job site, such as insurance, legal fees, and damage to your reputation. An accident can put an end to a career because companies want to hire people who add value, not people who cost them money.

2. Second, safety keeps you from having to take unplanned breaks. Remember that everything stops when there's an accident. When you're making something, it could be your whole line. It can be the whole loading dock in a warehouse.

3. Third, the right safety programme can help everyone do a better job overall. People's morale goes up when they can see that the organisation in charge of the building cares about them. People want to feel like their company cares about them. Signs that are in the right place and a supply closet full of personal protective equipment are two ways to show that the company cares.

For good safety management, the first thing you need to do is make sure everyone is on the same page and knows the safety rules inside and out. Adding instructions and training in two languages can help make sure that everything is being communicated well. For the maintenance team in particular, they need to know which tools are needed for each work order and how to use them correctly.

7.Give a detailed account of some case studies of disasters that have occurred in various industries.

Ans)

Bhopal Disaster, Madhya Pradesh

During the night of December 1-2, 1984, 45 tonnes of MIC gas leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, creating a poisonous grey cloud that spread throughout the city. Methyl isocyanate was kept in storage tank No. 610, which is one of the underground tanks. The water in the tank became tainted with catalytic material, which made the chemical unsafe to use. The contamination caused a chemical reaction, which caused the gas pressure to rise and then leak.

The disaster brought up some very important moral questions. The pesticide factory was built in an area with a lot of people living close together. UCIL chose to store and make MIC, one of the most dangerous chemicals (the US and UK only allow 0.02 parts per million of exposure), in an area where nearly 120,000 people lived. The MIC plant was not built to handle a reaction that gets out of control. When the uncontrolled reaction started, more than 200 times the amount of MIC that was supposed to go through the scrubber (which was meant to neutralise MIC emissions) was actually going through it.

The maximum amount of MIC that could be in the tank was 50 percent, but 87 percent was in there. As part of UCC's push for a global economy, the refrigeration and cooling systems had been turned off five months before the disaster. This was against the rules for storing MIC. The MIC tank had broken gauges and indicators that were very important. At the time of the accident, the tower that was supposed to burn off MIC emissions was being fixed, and the scrubber didn't have any caustic soda in it.

As part of UCC's plan to save money, the number of people working in the Bhopal factory was cut in half between 1980 and 1984. This caused major problems with safety and maintenance. The number of workers on the MIC plant's work crew was cut in half, from twelve to six. The job of maintenance supervisor had been taken away, so there was no longer anyone in charge of maintenance. The time it took to teach workers at the MIC plant about safety was cut from 6 months to 15 days.

Chernobyl Disaster, Ukraine

The Chernobyl disaster happened at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine. It is thought to be the worst nuclear power plant accident ever, because the explosion and fire sent a lot of radioactive particles into the air, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe. On April 26, 1986, a series of stem explosions caused by an unexpected power surge during a test started a fire in reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, 54 workers died, and over the years, almost 4000 people have died from diseases caused by the radiation.

The Banqiao Dam Collapse, China

In the floods of 1975, caused by the worst dam break ever, about 171,000 people died. The dam broke because of both natural and man-made things. The area got twice as much rain as the dam was built to hold. But investigations have also found that the dam was poorly designed and built, making it more likely to fail in such situations. When the dam broke on August 8, it let out a total of 15.38 billion m3 of water. More than 250,000 people died because of the natural disaster and the mistakes that people made.