| By :
Mark Etinger
Ecological disasters are luckily, mercifully fairly irregular occurrences. Seeing the fall out from say the disaster that occurred last year in Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant following last year's huge earthquake and tsunami is enough to make your skin crawl. The fear in the eyes of experts as they scramble to manage the fall out and dispose of hazardous material in a way that endangered people less is quite chilling. This all reads like some sort of horror story. Something genuinely not of our own world and yet it happened on the same planet we live in just a year ago. As we reflect on the dangers and hazards that the people of those Japanese cities endured we should also consider our own safety, not just when it comes to power plants and nuclear waste but also with regards to all the hazardous material disposal that is so vitally important to our collective safety. Of course as problems escalate to the level they hit in Fukushima those in charge of managing the crisis can no longer expect to keep everyone safe. The focus then becomes simply getting as much done as quickly and safely as possible. Needless to say there are a lot of troublesome compromises in a situation like this when it comes to the chemical waste disposal that would otherwise have been done carefully and safely. It is safe to assume that the fallout and debris caused by the crisis at Fukushima has yet to be fully managed and is likely still very dangerous and unsafe. Hazardous waste disposal of this magnitude is incredibly untenable. In fact when it comes to nuclear waste and a crisis involving wide ranging nuclear fallout it is likely that anything within a radius of several miles is now considered hazardous material and must be handled as such. Of course finding a trained and safeguarded workforce large enough for this kind of clean up is likely very hard to do. Watching a situation like that which unfolded last year in Japan makes us eternally grateful for the regulated chemical disposal that is typical in the United States. It also reminds us that in an age with wild advances in the way that we live with new energy sources and a wide array of modern conveniences there are always potential pitfalls that could cause us great distress if left unmanaged. Having plans in case of emergencies with large amounts of hazardous material disposal are vitally important. Preparedness may never be enough in a situation as unwieldy as the mess in Fukushima is likely never going to make the entire situation easy but it could make a large advance in keeping fallout less far reaching and giving us all a plan of action should such a scary situation ever arise in our backyards.
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