Preface

Hazardous waste management is an important issue for environmental and public health in each country and it is a challenge both in the developed and developing countries. Today, this waste is poisoning the environment and causing damage to the health of both humans and animals. This book focuses on several aspects of hazardous waste, from its sources to its consequences, for human health and natural environment. Furthermore, this book explains how the release of chemical toxins derived by hazardous waste can be negatively implicated in environmental and health impacts. Using many examples and illustrations, it shows the relationship between ecological improper hazardous waste management (such as e-waste and hospital waste) and human health. The book starts with a brief introduction, presenting the management of hazardous waste and increasing volume of different research on health impact. It comprises of eight chapters where the third and fourth chapters describe the impact on human health associated with an inadequate hazardous waste management.

The fifth chapter describes the correlation between heavy metal pollution and various acute and chronic diseases in human beings, while sixth chapter illustrates how reproductive biomarkers can be considered as early signals of environmental pressure and increased risk of adverse chronic health effects. Then chapter seventh assesses the relationship between the observed health risks and environmental contamination from an international perspective. Finally, the last chapter illustrates briefly zero-waste strategy as possible alternatives in solving the problems of waste generation. The authors emphasize the need to consider the environmental impact of human activities and include some real-world examples.