Collection Occupational hygiene, Issue 27, 1991 year

Ecological and hygienic aspects of the problem of heavy metals as technogenic pollutants

Yu.I. Kundiev, I.M. Trakhtenberg

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Kiev Research Institute of Occupational Hygiene and Occupational Diseases

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Among the potentially toxic chemicals that pollute various objects of the external environment (the air of the working area, atmospheric air, water bodies, soil, food), heavy metals and their compounds are a particularly dangerous group. Since metals and their inorganic and organic compounds can have a harmful effect on the human body and its environment, as well as taking into account the ever-increasing scale of their production and use, research of chemical pollutants is classified as a priority in accordance with the International Chemical Safety Program.

In modern industrial production, 70 metals of the periodic table are used. Of these, 56 are transitional, are characterized by incomplete outer electron shells, and have the ability to form organic compounds of higher toxicity than inorganic ones.

The group of heavy metals includes more than 40 elements with a high atomic mass and a relative density of more than 6 (lead, mercury, cadmium, molybdenum, silver, tin, niobium, antimony, tellurium, barium, tungsten, thallium, etc.).

Currently, we have developed the "Republican program of interdepartmental studies of environmental pollution with heavy metals and assessing their impact on human health in order to develop a system of effective preventive measures." The program was approved by the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. A number of institutes and organizations of the Academy of Sciences system, the Ukrainian Republican Administration for Hydrometeorology, the State Committee of the Ukrainian SSR for Nature Protection, the Ukrgeologiya Administration, and others will take part in its implementation along with the institutions of a biomedical profile. hygienic and ecological significance) the most toxic heavy metals and their compounds, which pose a particular danger to public health; second, the study of the health status of industrial workers and the population, primarily women, including pregnant women, children and people with chronic diseases; thirdly, the development and implementation of a set of scientifically grounded measures to improve the industrial and environment.

Further expansion of the use of heavy metal compounds, the increasing scale of their pollution of the human environment, the specific content of new scientific information in the field of hygiene and toxicology of heavy metals - all this dictates the need to tighten the relevant legislative regulations and standards.

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