NANOTECHNOLOGY’S ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH, AND SAFETY RISKS CAN BE ADDRESSED RESPONSIBLY TODAY

Lux Research: Stakeholders ranging from corporations to start-ups to protest groups are concerned about the environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks of nanoparticles – the prospect that tiny, engineered particles of matter might harm workers, consumers or the environment. While such EHS risks do exist, they can be appropriately addressed today using well-established risk management techniques. If definitive data was available about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanoparticles, there would be no debate. However, today fundamental research in the field is just getting underway. Lab-based studies are thin on the ground, and those that have been published sometimes conflict. We recommend that corporations and start-ups assess nanotech EHS issues based on existing risk management frameworks – substituting informed, conservative proxies for definitive data – to make wise commercialization decisions."

1. • Nanotech EHS risks fall into two distinct classes: 1) real risks that specific types of nanoparticles may be hazardous, and 2) perceived risks that they pose a threat regardless of whether or not it is real. Both are equally important in gating the progress of nanotechnology commercialization.

2. • Many nanotechnology applications, such as nanoimprint lithography and insulation made from nanoporous materials, do not incorporate nanoparticles and thus present little cause for concern.

3. • Different types of nanoparticles merit different levels of caution. Some, like silicon nanowires, look to be harmless on current evidence; others, such as cadmium-selenide quantum dots, raise greater cause for alarm.

4. • Even the most dangerous particles pose no threat if people never encounter them in significant quantities. The potential for exposure to nanoparticles varies across a product’s life cycle. Workers have the potential to be exposed to large quantities of nanoparticles at manufacturing, but in factory environments that can be tightly controlled; consumers are unlikely ever to be exposed to engineered nanoparticles that might enter their bodies because nearly all applications will fix nanoparticles in place, for example inside a plastic composite; and the environment may be exposed to nanoparticles when the products they’re incorporated in are discarded at end-of-life – the life cycle stage with the greatest uncertainty and need for more research.

5. • Of $8 trillion in projected manufacturing output incorporating nanotechnology through 2014, calculates that 25% is exposed to real risk at manufacturing, which should be easiest to mitigate. 7% is exposed to real risk at use, and 14% is exposed to risk at end-of-life. However, 40% is exposed to perceptual risk.

A Prudent Approach to Nanotech Environmental, Health, and Safety Risks Publ 20050615