What kinds of hazardous waste are there?

Most hazardous waste is identified by one or more of its dangerous properties or characteristics: corrosive, ignitable, reactive, or toxic.

• Corrosive - A corrosive material can destroy a substance. For example, most acids are corrosives that can eat through metal, burn skin on contact, and give off vapors that burn the eyes.

• Ignitable - An ignitable material can burst into flames easily. It poses a fire hazard; can irritate the skin, eyes, and lungs; and may give off harmful vapors. Gasoline, paint, and furniture polish are ignitable.

• Reactive - A reactive material can explode or create poisonous gas when combined with other chemicals. For example, chlorine bleach and ammonia are reactive and create a poisonous gas when they come into contact with each other.

• Toxic - Toxic materials or substances can poison people and other life. Toxic substances can cause illness and even death if swallowed or absorbed through the skin. Pesticides, weed killers, and many household cleaners are toxic.

How can hazardous waste affect us?

When hazardous wastes are released in the air, water, or on the land they can spread, contaminating even more of the environment and posing greater threats to our health. For example, when rain falls on soil at a waste site, it can carry hazardous waste deeper into the ground and the underlying groundwater. A hazardous substance can cause injury or death to a person, plant, or animal if:

• A large amount is released at one time

• A small amount is released many times at the same place

• The substance does not become diluted

• The substance is very toxic (for example, arsenic).

Humans, plants, and animals can be exposed to hazardous substances through inhalation, ingestion, or dermal exposure.

• Inhalation - we can breathe vapors from hazardous liquids or even from contaminated water while taking a shower.

• Ingestion - we can eat fish, fruits and vegetables, or meat that has been contaminated through exposure to hazardous substances. Probably the most common type of exposure is drinking contaminated water.

• Dermal exposure - a substance can come into direct contact with and be absorbed by our skin.

Biological Hazards and their Adverse Health Effects

These generally fall into two broad categories: those which produce adverse health effects through infection and those which produce adverse effects in non-infective (allergic) ways.

As regards microbiological hazards in water, substantial improvements in the health of the population have resulted historically from the supply of drinking water free from disease causing organisms such as cholera. There can be other opportunities for further bacteriological contamination. Thus Legionella can grow in sumps in the plumbing system and may then be dispersed as aerosols from showers.

Recreational water is heavily contaminated with pathogens.

 

Internet Threat and Ways to Escape

The Internet is a powerful medium that allows millions of users to chat, play games, download music, gather important information, and perform other various activities. All this has made the Internet an indispensable part of our daily lives. Although the Internet is useful, it also puts our personal and confidential information at substantial risk. This article lists the most common threats that exist when using the Internet. Although you might think you will never face these threats it is clear that everyone should be aware of them.

1. Suspicious E-Mail with attachments.

A report says that 90% of messages are spam messages. If you receive a suspicious e-mail from a stranger or even from your friend remember to be cautious with the attachment files. You all heard about lottery scam these days. It is unexpected email with notification “You have won!!” It asks you to contact agent for details. After contacting the agent, the target of the scams will be asked you to pay “processing fees” or “transfer charges” so that winnings can be distributed, but will never receive any lottery payment. It is wise not to believe such lottery E-Mail.

If the language used in the message is not normal, it contains a lot of spelling errors, or the message is written by foreign language, it is wise not to open the attachment file. It can be a spam message sent by a virus or even someone trying to get you runs a program in order to gain access to your computer. 95 percent of these files have the extensions of .pif, .scr, .exe, .com, .vbs, .bat, .cmd or .hta and users should immediately delete any such files without running them, unless they are explicitly aware of their origin and purpose.

Installing anti-malware software and using it to scan even trusted file types is essential, although it cannot guarantee 100 percent protection against such threats.

If you are not sure that the attached file is safe it’s a good idea to send a reply and ask more info about it. If the message is clearly pure spam – which can be usually determined just by looking at the subject of the message – just ignore it and delete the message without even opening it.

2. Social network attacks are a serious cyber security threat due to the popularity of social networks, which users can access not only by computer, but also by mobile phone.

”The more personal information you put out, the easier hackers can reach you,”

Hackers use new techniques called ”intelligence information gathering”, which is more advanced than searching by Google, to carry out targeted attacks. Hackers use software that can link to the back-office of Facebook and Twitter and can search in-depth information from web servers. Many users also don’t know that the information they publish on social networks is easily searched by Google. Users must use social network programs conscientiously and avoid unnecessarily publishing any sensitive or personal information.

How to protect yourself from social engineers:

a) Be careful not to disclose information to someone you don’t know over the phone, through email, or when using the Internet.

b) Don’t share personal information through Internet chat rooms.

c) Understand how information will be used before sharing it with merchants.

d) Don’t include your Account Number, Passport details or other personal information on requests.

3) Communication.

Internet is a great medium for being in touch with people. And just like you do in your normal everyday life you should pay attention to who are you giving your personal information. You should pay perhaps even more attention since you can’t tell anything about the other person as you do in real life eye-to-eye situation. Anyone can pretend to be anything in the Internet. If you are going to meet someone you’ve met online, you would like to do it in a public place.

These are the most common risks almost everyone will face when using the Net. Even if you don’t run into any of these threats it is important to realize that they exist.

4) Automatically downloading programs.

Some websites try to install programs or add-ons to your computer. Usually you will be prompted by a window asking rights to the installation. A good rule of thumb is to always decline the installation. If the web site is hosted by some big and trusted company you can rely on it is okay to install the software. However, you should always pay careful attention to what you install to your computer.

5) Fake pages.

These pages are made for pretending to be something they are not. User may receive a fake e-mail with a link to a page that looks just like an authentic webpage of some service he/she is using. The user is tricked to enter the fake page and when he/she enters the confidential information e.g. username and password, the data is not send where the user supposes it is, but instead collected and afterwards used for illegal purposes.

6. Misleading popup windows.

A popup window is a window that pops up in front of the other windows when you are browsing the web. Because of their great visibility popup windows have become a common way to show advertisements in the Internet. You should avoid popup windows. In some messages user may be showed an official-looking window announcing the user’s computer is infected by a virus or an ultra colorful blinking message telling they have just won a million dollars. These are nothing but blatant lies. If you click one of those messages it is most likely that you are brought to a webpage that tries to install some software, very likely containing some nasty things such as adware or spyware.

Ways you can protect yourself from viruses, worms and trojans:

a) Purchase or install free Anti-Virus software and update it daily before checking your email.

b) Obtain all Microsoft security updates.

c) Be SUSPICIOUS.

d) Do not open ANY unexpected email attachments.

e) Do not download or install unauthorized software.

f) Do not leave a Pen Drive in the floppy disk drive when you shut down or restart the computer. Write-protect your floppy disks after you have finished writing to them.

g) Verify that the author of the email has sent the attachments. Newer viruses can send email messages that appear to be from people you know or sites you routinely visit.

In conclusion, the Internet is full of useful material but this comes at a risk. It is important to develop safe surfing habits and a strong security plan before connecting to and utilizing the Internet.