Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Vol. 36, Nos. 3-4, 2000

A D E Q U A T E Q U A L I M E T R Y O F E C O L O G I C A L

S A F E T Y O F T E C H N O L O G I C A L O B J E C T S

INDUSTRIAL SAFETY, EQUIPMENT, AND PRODUCTION

M. V. Arkind, M. G. Borchaninov,

and V. S. Karpov

UDC 628.51:53.082.9

The causes of present-day ecological maladies, including technogenic cataclysms, may be analyzed in different ways.

These indeed are unbridled desire for maximum profit and failure to foresee everything in the quest for improving living con-

ditions of people. Whatever the case, it must be recognized that growth of industrial production, though not even across the

world, reached a critical point at the end of the XX century.

Passivity of engineering concepts and ideas played not a mean part in this respect. This refers, in particular, to evalu-

ation of ecological safety of technological objects using such obsolete parameters as maximum permissible concentration (MPC)

of deleterious materials, maximum permissible effect (MPE) on living systems, approximate sate effect level (ASEL), etc. Such

an approach stems from the concept, accepted in engineering practice, of permissible values of parameters.

However, successes of biological sciences and results of extensive toxicological and sanitation research have gradual-

ly led to the realization that, on the one hand, technogenic environmental pollution has attained menacing proportions and, on

the other, the referred and similar parameters are often unjustifiable in terms of consequences of the effect of toxic substances

on human and other living beings. Consequently, the existing organizational structure for development, production, and opera-

tion of technological objects does not pay adequate attention to this relationship.

Meanwhile, development of a system for monitoring the state of the environment proceeding directly from the evalua-

tion of the biota (flora and fauna) was initiated about 30 years back. In other words, the true criterion of evaluation of the dele-

terious effect of an individual factor on the envirormaent is the level of vitality of the organisms (or population) subjected to the

effect of this factor rather than its "permissible" level.

The essential feature of the new approach to testing of biological subjects [ 1 ] is differentiated quantitative evaluation

of vitality of organisms as a function of the established characteristic parameters of their vital activity. The index of optimality

of parameter (IOP) is taken as the evaluating criterion of vitality.

The characteristic dependence of IOP JjPi for one jth group of the same kind of living organisms on a certain ith char-

acteristic parameter Pi is depicted in Fig. 1.

The IOP evaluation range (0 < JjPi < 1) and the reference points of the IOP scale (Fig. 1) are taken in keeping with the

method of processing of multiparametric information [2, 3]. The reference points of the IOP scale determine the boundaries of

the vitality levels for each group of similar living organisms. The values of each vital activity parameter corresponding to these

points are validated by the results of clinical investigations, toxicological-sanitation studies, and genetic-psychological testing

of human beings and animals as well as by the evaluations of the state of the ecosystem based on phyto- and microbiological

test data. The obtained relationships and evaluations must be periodically substantiated by expert survey by highly qualified

specialists in their respective fields of knowledge. In this way must the list of characteristic vital activity parameters be period-

ically updated.

The index of ecological safety (IES) is taken as the evaluation criterion of ecological safety of technological objects.

In step with the above-formulated principle of evaluation of deleterious effect of technogenic factors, the IES of the object with

Moscow State University of Engineering Ecology. Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftegazovoe Mashinostroenie,

No. 4, pp. 43-44, April, 2000.

0009-2355/00/0304-0255525.00 �9 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers 255

Level of ecological safety of object

gj7 JjY safe ! !

! - - . ~ - o . n o - ,

permissible l ! ~ - o.Go-,

risk area ! v

.#-- o.~7-~ unsafe area .~

ecological : disaster area !

! 0.00-

Level of vitality ofo~anism

1 i very good !

! good ! " T !

: risk area ! !

! bad 7..- 3 - -

! ! very bad !

pOpt P i i

Fig. 1. Level of ecological safety of technological object as a function of

parameter of vital activity of living organism.

reference to one j th group of similar living organisms based on a certain ith characteristic vital activity parameter Pi is identi-

cally equal to the IOP of this parameter: jje _ jjp. In a similar way is realized the quantitative correspondence of the ecological safety level boundaries of a technologi-

cal object and the vitality of an individual organism, or a population, or an ecosystem (Fig. 1).

The vitality level evaluation method based on the above-elucidated approach has been successfully applied in surveys

of industrial areas of some cities (Belgorod, Dyat'kovo, Adbasar, etc.). The obtained results are highly reproducible and offer

an adequate fiducial evaluation of the state of biological subjects exposed to toxic effect in a wide range of variation of the vol-

ume of sampling of initial data. The applied programmed product makes it possible to rapidly evaluate IOP and IES from the

results of primary studies and to assess the damage to the environment and the pecuniary penalties (at .If # 1). Further, it is pos-

sible to process monitoring data from the MPC of hazardous wastes.

Based on the described procedure, a multi-purpose system of monitoring and evaluation of ecological safety level has

been proposed. Regardless of its purpose, the system provides for setting up of devices for monitoring the actual state of indi-

vidual groups of similar living organisms as well as for monitoring parameters of toxico-ecological models.

With reference to industrial production, introduction of this system makes it necessary to include ecological safety

index in the list of parameters of the technological level or techno-economic indices at all stages of the life cycle of the techno-

logical object, starting from the stages of working out of the technological production goal, technological rules of production,

or techno-economic validity of the industrial object.

These steps will make it possible to predict the competitive level of ecological safety of the technical object at all stages

of planning. The proposed system may allow one to maintain this level at the operation stage, timely disclosing the adverse

effects of specific toxic agents and the paths of their infiltration into areas of contact with people, other living organisms, and

the ecosystem in general.

R E F E R E N C E S

1 .

2.

3.

USSR Inventor's Certificate No. 763792, Method of Determination of the Suitability of Water for Drinking (1980).

J. Harrington, Industry. Quali~. Control, 21, No. 10, 49 a. "!.98 (1965).

Yu. M. Gorskii, Homeostatics [in Russian], 1988, p. 600.

256