Corrosion Policy Decision Making

7Environmental Impacts of Corrosion and Assessment Strategies

Reza Javaherdashti

Eninco Engineering B.V., Hengelo, The Netherlands

7.1 Introduction

Corrosion is a multidimensional matter; on one hand it is based on electrochemistry and materials science, on the other hand it is an umbrella term for electrical engineering, economy, management, and environment. In other words, corrosion is not the simple “rusting” that one may think as being an ordinary matter that can be easily rectified and cured by a team of corrosion scientists and corrosion engineers. Corrosion has undeniable impacts on the national economy and environment; in fact, the annual global cost of corrosion – despite all the intrinsic ambiguity and uncertainties that such models inherit from the assumptions made and the mathematics involved – is much higher than all the costs imposed on humanity by natural disasters from earthquakes to tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. This and similar data have been repeatedly mentioned by corrosion specialists and scientists all around the world in all of their corrosion gatherings and conferences. Despite all this, and with a few exceptions, it is really a far‐fetched idea to have expected that many educated professionals and academics take corrosion as an issue that is multifaceted. They argue that if a conference is about stainless steels, why should we have a section in corrosion? They just do not understand that one of the main reasons for having a conference about stainless ...