Sustainable Development and Society - GSA

Sustainable Development and Society
environmental and human needs. 4 Pollution
prevention is a way to facilitate a transition
toward sustainable production.
The potential for risk
shifting when addressing
occupational and
environmental health
problems separately
Although pollution prevention is limited to
preventing environmental degradation, it
has the potential to prevent adverse
impacts on worker safety and health as
well, if applied comprehensively to both the
general and work environments. When
making efforts to prevent worker injuries
and illnesses, and prevent pollution, there is
the potential for “risk shifting” from the
general environment to the work
environment and vice versa. Without
simultaneous attention to occupational and
environmental issues, traditional workplacebased
exposure control activities have the
potential to shift risk of the hazard among
different media. For example, a preferred
engineering control such as installing
ventilation exhaust systems that remove
hazardous dusts from the work area
transfers the risk to the general
environment, which now must deal with
collecting and disposing of the dust being
put into the ambient air outside the facility. 5
While pollution prevention addresses the
problem of risk shifting between
environmental media, it also has the
potential to shift risk between the general
and work environments. For example, while
acetone may be a less toxic substance to
use in parts cleaning than a chlorinated
solvent, it does present a new hazard of fire
and explosion not present with the
chlorinated solvent. Although pollution
prevention does not formally consider the
work environment as another “medium”
that is equally affected by production or
material changes to prevent pollution, there
is no reason why it cannot be broadened to
encompass workplace hazards. The
potential use of substitute materials or
proposed changes should consider the
impact of the changes on worker health
within the work environment. If applied
systematically, pollution prevention
methods used to reduce or eliminate
hazards at the source can identify potential
workplace hazards (during the process of
considering alternative technologies,
chemicals or processes). By applying the
methods of pollution prevention across
occupational and environmental media, the
work environment is given equal standing
with the general environment when
pollution prevention strategies are planned.
Worker risks should be
carefully explored in
choosing “substitute
chemicals.”
Example:
Risk Shifting in Auto Repair
In response to the California Air Board’s
1997 decision to phase out chlorinated
solvents used in the auto repair industry
(hazardous to the environment), employers
substituted these solvents with hexane and
acetone. Unfortunately, it was not
considered at the time that hexane posed a
risk to workers. It was soon discovered that
with overexposure, hexane caused
peripheral neuropathy – a debilitating
disorder that causes numbness and tingling
in the fingers and toes followed by
weakness and muscle wasting. 6
Pollution prevention planning requires
careful consideration of the impact of
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