Nanotechnology ─ Health and Environmental Risks

Should you adopt nanotechnology? If you have already adopted it, what do you need to know? What are the risks? Nanomaterials and nanotechnologies are revolutionizing the ways we treat disease, produce energy, manufacture products, and attend to our daily wants and needs. To continue to capture the promise of these transformative products, however, we need to ask critical questions about the broader impacts of nanotechnology on society and the environment. Exploring these questions, the second edition of Nanotechnology: Health and Environmental Risks gives you the latest tools to understand the risks of nanotechnology and make better decisions about using it.

Examining the state of the science, the book discusses what is known, and what still needs to be understood, about nanotechnology risk. It looks at the uses of nanotechnology for energy, industry, medicine, technology, and consumer applications and explains how to determine whether there is risk—even when there is little reliable evidence—and how to manage it. Contributors cover a wide range of topics, including:

• Current concerns, among them perceived risks and the challenges of evaluating emerging technology
• A historical perspective on product safety and chemicals policy
• The importance of being proactive about identifying and managing health and environmental risks during product development
• How the concepts of sustainability and life cycle assessment can guide nanotechnology product development
• Methods for evaluating nanotechnology risks, including screening approaches and research
• How to manage risk when working with nanoscale materials at the research stage and in occupational environments
• What international organizations are doing to address risk issues
• How risk assessment can inform environmental decision making

Written in easy-to-understand language, without sacrificing complexity or scientific accuracy, this book offers a wide-angle view of nanotechnology and risk. Supplying cutting-edge approaches and insight, it explains what types of risks could exist and what you can do to address them.

What’s New in This Edition

• Updates throughout, reflecting advances in the field, new literature, and policy developments
• A new chapter on nanotechnology risk communication, including insights into risk perceptions and the mental models people use to evaluate technological risks
• An emphasis on developing nanotechnology products that are sustainable in the long term
• Advances in the understanding of nanomaterials toxicity
• Cutting-edge research on occupational exposure to nanoparticles
• Changes in the international landscape of organizations working on the environmental, health, and safety aspects of nanotechnologies

Jo Anne Shatkin, Ph.D., leads CLF Ventures, a nonprofit affiliate of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England’s most influential environmental advocacy organization. Dr. Shatkin is an environmental health scientist and recognized expert in human health risk assessment, emerging contaminants policy, and environmental aspects of nanotechnology. She provides leadership on proactive approaches to sustainable technology development, working to advance life cycle approaches to risk analysis, and incorporate life cycle thinking into product design and development. She teaches courses and has published papers and book chapters on topics of stakeholder engagement, environmental health and safety and life cycle approaches to risk analysis for nanotechnology. Dr. Shatkin serves as councilor of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), serves on the board of the Center for Environmental Policy at American University, and is a founding board member of the Stewardship Action Council, and leads the SAC Collaborative Partnerships initiative.