Accident/Incident Scenarios based on Stages Across the Complete Chemical/Product Life Cycle

摘要

There are risk assessments for chemicals that have been adopted in various countries, based onalmost the same logic but differing in emphasis. The scenarios for chemical processing aregenerally related to the immediate impact of unplanned releases of material and energy, wherethe effects of fire, explosion or acute toxicity are targeted. The long-term effects of unplannedreleases to the environment through abnormal operation, or the point of view of chemical/product life cycles tend to be excluded.This paper describes a new conceptual framework in the description of physical hazardscenarios (such as of fire or explosion) caused by chemicals throughout their life cycles. Itconsiders the following aspects of chemical hazards: 1) Life stages, 2) Inventories, 3)Abnormal/unplanned release, 4) Sequential events following chemical release, 5) Impact onhumans, and 6) Consequences & severity categories. Here, accident/incident scenarios aredefined in a broad sense, including both chemicals and plastic materials.Based on the collection of accident/incident information through the Internet, etc., we hope, inthe future, to be able to construct a system to more easily identify physical hazards andaccident/incident scenarios throughout chemical/product life cycles, which will useful in findingcases where the philosophy of Inherently Safer Design (ISD) will work.