Cadmium is toxic and cancerogenic. It belongs to the heavy metals and usually occurs bound to other substances. In ambient air arsenic is measured bound to particulate matter.
Metals and selenium are found in the environment in various different compounds. Their geogenic concentrations (background concentrations ) vary. Some metals and selenium are essential for organisms at low concentrations.
European environment and health policy attaches great importance to the human biomonitoring (HBM) tool for the determination of the environmental burden on the population. However previous or ongoing HBM studies in several European countries deal with different issues.
Environmental influences can cause illness: For example, noise increases the risk of heart attack and particulate matter may trigger lung cancer. The Federal Environment Agency uses the "environmental burden of disease” concept to investigate which environmental impacts are associated with particularly large numbers of diseases and what benefits environmental protection can have for our health.
Batteries are ubiquitous nowadays and enable us to use many different kinds of mobile devices independently of the power grid. The environmental and resource relevance of batteries stems from the valuable and hazardous substances they may contain. Hence under no circumstances should batteries ever be disposed of with household waste.
