Potential sources of human exposure to PFOS may have included manufacturing operations and waste streams of POSF-based fluorochemical products and the use or degradation of some final commercial and consumer products, including indirect food-contact applications (3M Company 2003).
Many of the examples here use existing waste streams or manufacturing byproducts to create unique materials.
With little or no treatment of some manufacturing discharges or municipal and agricultural waste streams containing human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, risks to wildlife and humans are predicted to be high, but remain virtually unassessed [ 20, 21].
Litten et al. reported that PCB11 was in surface waters and effluent waste streams from a pigment manufacturing plant around New York Harbor (10).
Although not fully understood, the pathways leading to the presence of PFOS in serum and tissue in the general population include release to the environment of POSF-based materials in the waste streams generated from the manufacturing processes and supply chain operations, and/or exposures to consumer products (3M Company 2003; Hansen et al. 2002; Martin et al. 2002; OECD 2002).
Three major waste streams are generated during steel manufacturing, air emissions, wastewater and solid waste.
Viewed as a sort of ideal solution to the linear model, the traditional concept of this circular system, in which nothing is discarded because all waste streams are returned to the manufacturing process, would require massive changes to our global infrastructure, from production to consumption.
Although maintenance and housekeeping activities are similar in one plant to another, pharmaceutical industries do not generate uniform waste streams, due to the variety of medicines produced during any given manufacturing process (Kavitha et al. 2012; Wei et al. 2012; Madukasi et al. 2010; Chang et al. 2008; Rao et al. 2004).
Together, the precursors come from a wide range of natural, manufacturing, combustion, consumer product, and waste stream sources.
The waste streams are different.
