Abstract
The world mineral fertilizer industry and use are started widely in the middle of the 19th century. In the 1960s and after the increase of food demands and because of the high prices of these chemicals, many developing countries, and Iraq as well, have also started to produce and use these chemicals but unfortunately on the value of food quality, health and the environment sometimes. In Iraq and regardless of the problems of the random production, handling and use and their impact on the environment, these activities are become worse especially after the Kuwait War and the economic embargo imposed on Iraq in 1991.
This research was initiated to focus on the impact of chemical fertilizers industry and use on the world and then on the Iraqi environment according to the international experience in this field and to the acceptable levels of these chemicals. The salient conclusion of this work reveals that In Iraq there is industrial treatment mismanagement as well as farmer misuse, hence there are environmental problems and may be worsen in the near future. For instance, the activities of the State Company of Phosphate Production in Al-Anbar Province causes a noticeable pollution related to the miss management of waste disposal and due to the un efficient treatment units paralyzed because of either the 1991 Kuwait war (where 70-90% of the company is being destroyed) or because the embargo and hence the difficulties in maintaining the treatment units. In addition to the accumulation of thousands of ton of solid wastes ( as phosphogypsum and alkali clays ) and the gaseous pollutants of the sulfuric acid production units, it could be noted that the properties of treated liquid effluents ( like pH, P2O5, F and SO4 are 9.4, 5ppm, 5ppm and 750ppm , respectively) which are greater than the WHO standards of drinking water ( 6.5-9.2, less than 3ppm, 1-1.5ppm and 200-400ppm, respectively ).
