Hazardous chemicals integral part of the consumer economy

Hazardous chemicals are an integral part of nearly every industry in the world. There are over 100,000 different chemical substances in use in everyday products today - some safe, some not safe at all.

Where does hazardous waste come from?

Industry: Some of the largest sources of hazardous waste are large industries such as mining, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, energy, and product manufacturing. In the pharmaceuticals industry, 100 kilos of emissions and waste are generated for every kilo of product.

According to the UN, about 85 million child labourers work under hazardous conditions including exposure to toxic chemicals.

Everyday products: But hazardous waste also comes from discarded consumer products, for example, batteries, cosmetics, cleaning products, paints, electronics.

The amount of electronic waste (e-waste) has skyrocketed together with the digital revolution. E-waste often contains toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead cadmium and brominated flame retardants - chemicals suspected of affecting children's cognitive development and messing with our hormone system. Large quantities of e-waste are discarded with little or no control at e-waste sites in the third world. According to the UN, 780,000 children are at risk of diminished intelligence from exposure to the chemicals at these sites.

Hazardous waste ends up in nature

The hazardous chemicals find their way into nature. But there is no comprehensive global system for monitoring hazardous waste spills, so we don’t know the exact size of the problem. We can just observe, that toxic chemicals are everywhere:

“Wherever scientists look - the tropics, marine systems, industrial regions, the Arctic - they find the impacts of our toxic chemicals”.

- WWF

There are certain groups of chemicals that are particularly problematic:

• Persistent chemicals that are not broken down and therefore accumulate in people and ecosystems.
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals that mess up the hormone systems of animals and people
• Chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive problems, or damage our DNA.

What’s really disturbing: The world continues to produce more and more chemicals.The global production of synthetic chemicals is estimated at $7.8 trillion a year. That’s almost a billion dollars every hour of every day. And this number is expected to more than double by 2050 compared to 2020.