Sarah Wild, at Business Day in South Africa, explores the risks surrounding nanotechnology, particularly when applied to areas like water treatment. A potential way around the risks:
Prof Wepener suggests that production-side management is the way to manage risks.
“(Detection difficulty) is why you are not going to get environmental legislation in terms of levels in the environment, but you can legislate the amount that can be released…. It requires regulation at the production phase, rather than retrospectively.”
The positive side is that “in the past, SA has been playing catch-up on environmental issues … fortunately, with nanotechnology, we’re involved in the studies as they are happening in Europe and North America.”
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