Effects and Health Risk Assessment of Mixed Metals at and near a Ship Wrecking Yard in Bangladesh
Effects and Health Risk Assessment of Mixed Metals at and near a Ship Wrecking Yard in Bangladesh
The environmental pollutants particularly a number of harmful elements have increased intensely in Bangladesh due to industrialization, urbanization, improper disposal of waste, widespread use of fertilizer, pesticides and other human activities. All of which could create serious threat to environmental and human health due to their toxicity, long stability, bioaccumulation and biomagnification in the food chain. The ship wrecking yard (SWY) in Bangladesh is now a significant industry. The yard (SWY) uses more dangerous open beaching method to dismantle the end of life (EOL) ships to recover valuable materials such as scrap iron, steel, wrought copper alloys, aluminium, titanium and its alloys, lead etc. for the purpose of recycle and reuse. It has been running over a long period of time (> 40 years). It is one of the rapidly developing (or blooming) industrial sectors in Bangladesh with enormous employment opportunities and provided 80-90% of the total steel usage in the country, despite its negative environmental impact. Due to the ship wrecking activities, economic growth may enhance but change the environment drastically for its grave environmental pollution, caused by the contamination of mixed metals, PAHs, PCBs, asbestos, etc., especially mixed metals/metalloids which have easily access to food chain and drinking water, therefore, leading to potential health risk to human. It is one of the manmade hazards in the world. It is significant to mention that no detailed study/reviews have been reported about the contamination of such chemicals (e.g. harmful metal/loids including cadmium, lead, chromium, cobalt, nickel, mercury, and arsenic etc.) in the food and drinking water and their risk assessment. A health risk assessment of metals and metalloids derived from ship wrecking activities causing contamination via the food chain and drinking water is the basis of the projects aim. To date, the wet season’s samples (soil, water, rice, vegetables, fish, beef and chicken) have collected, and the metals/metalloids in water, fish, beef and chicken (out of them) were analyzed by the validated ICP-MS methods. To investigate the effects and health risk assessment of mixed metals, human cell based bioassays will be conducted. The findings would be more important and significant for environmental health and toxicological concern, especially for human health.
Please note this is a PhD Student Confirmation seminar.