Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
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Environmental, Health and Safety Policy Recommendation

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

ICF International, a consulting services company for technology solutions in the energy, environment, transportation, social programs, defense, and homeland security markets had released its recommendation on Environmental, Health and Safety Policy recommendation for the US Government, in a 36 page document.

One thing I like from the document is the way it explains and analyse inter-departemental competence in US Government in handling Nanotechnology's Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) issues. On the other hand, I am quite pessimistic that this report can encompass all of Nanotech's EHS issue.

The Reason? They focus mainly on the toxicity of nanomaterials (See: Part I, Framing the issue). The whole set of assumption which forms the rest of the report is based on this. It is not that this issue is not important, it is important and it reflects the most "current" nanotech EHS issue. However, it may not be that current in one or two years. Thus, I don't think that the rest of the recommendation can cover Nanotech EHS issue, other than the relationship between nanomaterials to human and the environment.

EHS issue on the second and third generation nanotechnology which covers active nanostructure will also need to be addressed. So far, I have not discover any research focusing on this.

You can download ICF International report here.