M8.5 Ideal Chemical Policy

I would like to see chemical and pesticide policy parallel that of radiation policy in hospitals. I routinely have to monitor my radiation exposure by wearing a badge wherever I go. I visit many hospitals throughout the week for work. This badge, with my control badge at home, I send in every three months to measure the amount of radiation it picked up; hence what I picked up and absorb while working over the past three months. This level is measured at a facility in MN and sent back to me indicating what level of exposure I have had over the three months. This in turn shapes how I work. If we could develop something similar, where we could monitor all the farm workers remotely, and then provide feedback on exposure I think this would go a long way to helping those who are exposed to chemicals. If a farm worker was high for one chemical we would remove that worker from that field to allow the exposure to dissipate. We would also know what farm it was and penalize that farm in some monetary fashion.

Comments

  1. Sandy TanOctober 19, 2018 at 12:42 PM

    Hi Dan,
    Although monitoring chemical levels and penalizing companies who overuse toxic chemicals is a great start to protect the workers' health, I feel like it's a soft slap to the wrist. It still does not completing stop toxic chemicals from being introduced to people and the ecosystem.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 24, 2018 at 12:30 AM

    Hey Dan,
    This is very interesting. It would be a great idea to monitor the levels of exposure for harmful chemicals remotely for each worker. I can imagine a barrier would be that measuring chemical exposure is considerably harder than measuring radiation exposure (using a dosimeter and reporting the numbers read) and therefore more expensive.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

M10.5 Blog about occupational safety

I chose to look into the ILO or the international labour organization. Within the ILO they support the Hotels, Catering, and Tourism sector. I thought this was a good one to look in to as it directly affects me and any person who travels, eats food, and stays in hotels. This sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world but lacks the structure it needs. Reasons include being a fragmented industry, seasonalized employees, low skills needed, and low wages. I specifically looked in to social protection of the employees. Typically, the hours are of non social working hours, meal prep etc. Difficulty working conditions lead to high turnover and low career stability. Additionally, seasonal tourism effect employment and wages. This is important to us as the low wage, typically migrant employees, are the ones cooking our food, changing and cleaning our rooms typically go unnoticed per the ILO. Should this sector of the industry fail or show signs of weakness, people will stay les...
Read more

M3.5 Transportation

Interesting to read there is a tool that could help practitioners in the  Transportation and Health Tool (THT). I did not know this existed until now. This could help a lot of practitioners in cities.  In my own personal experience there are far too many cars, busses, and semi trucks on the road today. There is constant road work and work trucks dumping out loads of smog. I understand to get where we need to be we need to build and expand. The muni/salesforce tower and bus lines are finally complete, and this will help. SF is expanding van ness but all I breathe in our fumes from the concrete and endless amounts of smog from the traffic delays. I am seeing more and more walkers but I can't get past the number of uber and lyft cars on the road contributing to increased traffic and air pollution. Scooters and bikes which contribute very little to air pollution should be the norm. I feel like SF is a great place to live but there is certainly an expanding list of cons.
Read more

M5.4 CCR and water quality

For contra costa county (East Bay MUD) you can find the CCR here: https://www.ebmud.com/water/about-your-water/water-quality/water-quality-report-english/ Quite an interesting pdf that contra costa has put together. I had no idea the water I drank all my life came from a river. Almost all of EBMUD’s water comes from the 577-square mile watershed of the Mokelumne River on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. I just assumed it was from a mountain source like Mt. Shasta or Lanier. For chemicals within the water, surprisingly, most amounts were all well under the federal requirements. So, I am pleasantly pleased that my drinking water is not bad. Most of the chemicals within the water are from fertilizer and surface run off. These include chromium and vanadium. Aluminum was surprising to me. I was surprised that was there. The amounts were tiny and they list is as due to erosion of natural deposits and due to the water filtration process. However, as toxnet states, aluminum can cau...
Read more