Post by danny bursteinBack in 1965 I took a tour of Kodak Park, Rochester, and they
showed us the photographic film manufacturing area.
(Remember Back In The Day when.. companies would show
off their production lines?)
Yes, those tours were fascinating. Even got free samples
(like a free loaf of bread after a tour of the commercial
bakery). Companies were proud of themselves and had
whole units of tourguides and literature.
Post by danny bursteinSo we're in a very dim hallway, overlooking a large
factory floor, that has just barely visible marker lighting
for minimal safety 'cuz film, of course, is light sensitive.
The guide explains that part, of course, and also describes
the super clean environment they need. He added that they
had Geiger Counters on the air vents, and that if they
detected any radiation from the Nevada tests (remember
back then these were often open air) they'd route the
air through extra filters to keep the fallout away from
the film.
Eyup. Worried about the film. Not about the people...
Yep. A 1950s text on steel making spends time addressing
the corrosive atmosphere around a steel plant. Here too,
not worried about the effect on the workers, but rather
the impact on steels that had a special surface finish
to them--they didn't want them getting pitted or marred
from atmospheric corrosion.
Other texts talk about impact on electrical devices.
Sometimes crap in the air would react would surface
materials and cause electrical or electronic issues.
Post by danny bursteinKind of like Flint. GM noticed that the bad water
was corroding their engine parts, so they ran a new
pipeline to bring in Detroit water.
But no one cared about the people.
(Until Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, of course).
A steel plant was dumping nasty scaling acid in the river
which caused problems downstream. Even in the limited
standards of the past it was still a violation. But
the steel company just ignored letters from the health
department.
This was common in the US steel industry. When the EPA
was created in the 1970s and got some teeth, the steel
industry finally was forced to address some of its
worst pollution abuses. In some cases the cost was too
much to clean up an old plant so it closed down.
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I
don't like to see jobs and industry shut down. But on
the other hand, some of the pollution was very nasty--we
don't want nasty acid in our drinking water, or air do
dirty and corrosive it ruins our car finishes.
One tough issue is that while the US cleaned itself
up quite a bit from 50 years ago, part of the solution
meant simply offshoring the mess. That is, poor
countries elsewhere in the world now do our dirty
work, poisoning themselves. Out of sight out of mind.