1
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
B. Balabanova, T. Stafilov (eds.), Contaminant Levels and Ecological Effects,
Emerging Contaminants and Associated Treatment Technologies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66135-9_1
Chapter 1
General Aspects of Environmental
Degradation vs. Technological
Development Progression
Biljana Balabanova
Abstract A look at natural resources in terms of life cycle reveals several
environmental problems related to production and consumption and combines
resource use and waste generation. The use of resources and the generation of waste
are special impacts on the environment, but the two issues share many of the same
driving forces – largely related to how and where we produce and consume goods
and how we use natural capital for economic sustainability development and consumption. More recently, life cycle thinking has been introduced as the guiding
principle of resource management. Environmental impacts are considered throughout the life cycle of products and services to avoid or minimize the transfer of environmental stress between different stages of the life cycle and from one country to
another. With the passage of time and the long-term activities of the human factor,
the contents of certain metals have been completely and permanently changed in
relation to their natural existence in the environment. These changes can have a
significant influence on the physiology and ecology of the organisms adapted to
survive in thus created conditions of higher metal contents. The anthropogenic
activities for exploitation of natural resources and their processing through adequate
technological processes and management of the waste produced by the same represent a global problem of pollution of the environment. The distribution of the different chemical elements, including the potentially toxic metals, creates characteristic
conditions for the living organisms. Considering that their contents in the environment are variable, it is important to identify the regions with changed contents, differing from the natural distribution of the elements in the different segments of the
biosphere.
Keywords Bio-toxic hazards · Environmental pollution · Mass spectroscopy ·
Toxicity
B. Balabanova (*)
Faculty of Agriculture, Goce Delčev University, Štip, Republic of North Macedonia
e-mail: biljana.balabanova@ugd.edu.mk
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
B. Balabanova, T. Stafilov (eds.), Contaminant Levels and Ecological Effects,
Emerging Contaminants and Associated Treatment Technologies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66135-9_1
Chapter 1
General Aspects of Environmental
Degradation vs. Technological
Development Progression
Biljana Balabanova
Abstract A look at natural resources in terms of life cycle reveals several
environmental problems related to production and consumption and combines
resource use and waste generation. The use of resources and the generation of waste
are special impacts on the environment, but the two issues share many of the same
driving forces – largely related to how and where we produce and consume goods
and how we use natural capital for economic sustainability development and consumption. More recently, life cycle thinking has been introduced as the guiding
principle of resource management. Environmental impacts are considered throughout the life cycle of products and services to avoid or minimize the transfer of environmental stress between different stages of the life cycle and from one country to
another. With the passage of time and the long-term activities of the human factor,
the contents of certain metals have been completely and permanently changed in
relation to their natural existence in the environment. These changes can have a
significant influence on the physiology and ecology of the organisms adapted to
survive in thus created conditions of higher metal contents. The anthropogenic
activities for exploitation of natural resources and their processing through adequate
technological processes and management of the waste produced by the same represent a global problem of pollution of the environment. The distribution of the different chemical elements, including the potentially toxic metals, creates characteristic
conditions for the living organisms. Considering that their contents in the environment are variable, it is important to identify the regions with changed contents, differing from the natural distribution of the elements in the different segments of the
biosphere.
Keywords Bio-toxic hazards · Environmental pollution · Mass spectroscopy ·
Toxicity
B. Balabanova (*)
Faculty of Agriculture, Goce Delčev University, Štip, Republic of North Macedonia
e-mail: biljana.balabanova@ugd.edu.mk