Sorting study on the toxicity screening of a single pollutant towards enterprises based on the USEtox model and textile industry cases

Abstract

The overuse of chemicals has been causing serious global pollution. Toxicity assessment and screening of chemicals effectively contribute to individualised management and control of toxic and harmful chemicals that are released into the environment. Moreover, they can protect the ecological environment and human health from the effect of these substances. This study is researching for A Textile Company in Suzhou, China, and uses the USEtox consensus model to calculate the toxic effects of pollution emissions on the ecological environment. In addition, the pollutants that should be controlled first are screened and identified through comprehensive analysis of accounting results. Results show that heavy metals are a major source of potential ecotoxicity and pollutants to be prioritised. Considering the total ecotoxicity ranking, category ranking and rankings within categories of pollutants discharged by A company, copper, nickel and manganese in heavy metals; tetrachlorophenol and pentachlorophenol in chlorinated chemicals; and nonylphenol/branched-4-nonylphenol and 4-octylphenol in alkylphenols should be primarily controlled. From the perspective of terminal control, the study puts forward that the objects of corporate environmental management should be transformed from ‘medium management (wastewater, waste gas and waste residue)’ to ‘substance management (chemical)’ and provides empirical evidence for the management and control of toxic and hazardous substances from ‘comprehensive pollutant management’ to ‘single pollutant management’. The research results can provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for scientific decision-making in order to achieve priority management and control of pollutants and reduce the ecotoxic effects of chemical pollutants.

Keywords:

• Textile enterprises
• printing and dyeing
• USEtox model
• ecotoxicity
• screening sort
• priority control

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Key Project of Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LY21G030004); Zhejiang Ecological Civilization Institute of Zhejiang Provincial Key Research Base of Philosophy and Social Sciences (20JDZD076); Key projects of the national social science fund (19AZD004); Major projects of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zhejiang Province (21096054-F); Department of Education of Zhejiang Province (20096193-Y), and K. C.Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University.