Environmental Law and Ethics

Environmental Law and Ethics in Manufacturing Business
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Environmental Law and Ethics in Manufacturing Business
In the recent times, pollution has become one of the most common factors that have marred the environment. This is mostly after factories have released their waste products into the environment and thus contaminating the medium of transmission, i.e., air pollution and water pollution. In many cases, the companies’ ignorance has led to the contamination of water or air and thus bringing sickness to those who live near the factories. Moreover, the wastes produced directly impact the natural ecosystem and the living things that live in the vicinity (Pollution from factories, 2015).
Case Study
In light of this, different administrative agencies have been created by the U.S Congress, Federal Constitution and state legislatures to deal with these issues. One of the regulatory compliance agencies is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA regulates industrial, household, hazardous and manufacturing solid wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The primary function of RCRA’s is to protect the citizens from waste disposal, conserve natural resources and energy, eliminate or reduce waste and clean up waste that has either spilled or has been mishandled. Therefore, considering the scenario of the marine pain manufacturing plant, this is the agency that deals with the manufacture’s compliance. This is because it deals with the disposal or handling of hazardous products.

Under the hazardous waste program, in the RCRA subtitle C, there exists a control system that regulates hazardous waste from production time to disposal. On the other hand, the pipeline and hazardous material safety administration control the transportation of the hazardous wastes (Regulatory Information by Topic: Waste, 2017). They also have their own set of rules and regulations that ensure an individual company complies with the regulations for the hazardous wastes. The steps involved in this particular area is; count of the total amount of hazardous waste, notification of the relevant authorities and agencies, transportation, and final treatment, recycling or disposal.
In the scenario where the President advocates for the ignoring of the information or hiding it, he is displaying a conflict of interest as an ethical concern. This is because even though he knew that the pain leaks were hazardous to the aquatic life, he decided to ignore it. This is very critical as the aquatic life will translate to human life, and thus the leeching of the paint would affect not only marine organisms but also human because of consumption. It would, therefore, cause different diseases like cancer and even poisoning in some cases. This means that he is risking a lot by putting human and aquatic life at stake. Keeping this in mind, it is apparent that this would ultimately lead to lawsuits from environmental and human protection agencies like the EPA. In this manner, it would cost a lot of money for the company to compensate the people, together with massive fines due to ignorance. The President of the company acted in this way because he did not want a possible shut down of the company. But with ignorance of the possibilities due to pollution, the magnitude of the sanctions is enormous.
In this typical situation, Eric must not get directly to the agencies or tell anyone about the actions of the company because it is the company secret and, therefore, he is bound to keep quiet due to the binding contracts that are signed by the employees of the company that incorporate the secrecy of the company’s information. The action that Eric should undertake is to discuss the issue with his senior, the Vice President. They would both formulate a way to convince the President of the possible lawsuits and the losses the company would go through. In fact, it would also mean jail time for those involved in the running of the business. It would thus be a motivating factor for the search for a solution.
In conclusion, it is paramount for companies to comply with the environmental codes in term of hazardous waste management. This is because it is risking both the ecosystem and the human life. To avoid lawsuits and possible closure of the company or factory, the administration should strive to stay within the ethical boundaries and should spearhead the conservation and maintenance of the environment.
References
Pollution from factories. (2015). Hesperian.org. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://hesperian.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en_wgthas_2015/en_wgthas_2015_33.pdfRegulatory Information by Topic: Waste | US EPA. (2017). US EPA. Retrieved 26 January 2018, from https://www.epa.gov/regulatory-information-topic/regulatory-information-topic-waste