“You’ve been exposed to a very high level, I’m incensed and angry that Shell let this happen. Shell is not interested in being your friend. They will do absolutely the minimum they are required to do.”

Parish will lose this case and pay a relatively small fine, but in situations like this it’s the workers that really lose. At place like Parish an employee who regularly clocks in to do his or her job could be rewarded with a debilitating and potentially fatal illness. Sadly this is not uncommon….

“The contamination is thought to stem from shell owned oil reserves operated on the land from the 1920′s to 1960′s. In those days, oil was stored in subterranean concrete lined tanks which today are illegal due to problems with leakage.”

Failure to comply with [chemical] leak detection and repair requirements under federal emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants was the rap.
In a face slappingly arrogant statement the company said:”[Vertellus] is confident that these emissions did not have any effect on it’s employees or neighbors.”

A new study receiving lots of attention this week has shown that burning common paraffin wax based candles releases potentially harmful pollutants. Scientists from South Carolina State University burned candles in a special chamber so as to monitor the contents of the smoke, and found that benzene, toluene and ketones where present. Benzene has been linked [...]

Richard Czuprynski says that during his employment with KCS, he was exposed to benzene, xylene, toluene, mixed solvents and diesel exhaust (which also contains benzene and other chemicals).

“Of the 40,000 people who responded to Ground Zero after the attacks, 70 percent, or 33,000, are sick or dying as a result of their service”/ “A lot of the things they were exposed to, such as benzene, have in the past possibly been implicated with an increased incidence in the cancer.”

Old underground gas storage tanks put people at risk of exposure to benzene and other carcinogens. As these tanks deteriorate, they release their content into the ground, threatening to poison ground water, and drinking water wells. According to a 2005 Sierra Club report, in 2005 the U.S. had 680,000 leaking underground storage tanks, with about [...]

According to the World Health Organization over 25% of illness world wide is caused by environmental toxins, meaning pollution. Arguably, the ignorance that allowed humans to mindlessly pollute the planet in pursuit of economic prosperity fueled the industrial revolution and allowed the rise of industrialized nations in the 20th century. However, today there are many [...]

Two years ago, a massive plume of toxic chemicals was discovered beneath the site of a Sydney waterfront development. Now Australia’s tax payers face footing the $98m clean-up bill. Australia’s Environment Protection Authority just declared that chemical leaching of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene and cyanide at the site poses "a significant risk of harm [...]