Public Health Protection Zone

a zone separating industrial enterprises from nearby residential or public buildings. A zone is created to protect the population against harmful production factors, including noise, dust, and gaseous and other harmful emissions that contain industrial poisons.

In the USSR the width of a public health protection zone is established so that industrial emissions that reach residential areas do not exceed maximum permissible concentrations. All industrial enterprises are subdivided into five categories with respect to the degree of harmfulness of the industrial wastes emitted into the atmosphere, the sophistication of the production processes, and the availability of purification facilities. The public health protection zone is 1,000 m wide for the first category, 500 m wide for the second, 300 m wide for the third, 100 m wide for the fourth, and 50 m wide for the fifth. For industrial enterprises that do not emit wastes into the atmosphere, the width of the zones is determined according to the possibility of an emergency situation.

In certain cases, for example, where residential areas are located on the leeward side of industrial enterprises, the width of the public health protection zone may be increased at the demand of the agencies of the public health epidemiologic service; the width of a zone may even exceed the width established for industrial enterprises of the first category. Public health protection zones based on the same principles have been established in other socialist countries. The capitalist countries do not have national laws regarding the establishment of public health protection zones.