What is Pollution?
Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into the environment. These harmful materials are called pollutants. Pollutants can be natural, such as volcanic ash. They can also be created by factory runoff or human activity, such as trash, and overconsumption of energy and fuel. Pollutants damage the quality of air, water, and land.
Types Of Pollution And Their Effects on The Environment
Types:
- Air Pollution: Air pollution is a mixture of solid particles and gases in the air. Air pollution comes from fossil fuel emissions, agriculture, natural disasters like wildfires, etc. Car emissions, chemicals from factories, dust, pollen, and mold spores may be suspended as particles.
- Water Pollution: Water pollution occurs when harmful substances — often chemicals or microorganisms — contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water, degrading water quality and rendering it toxic to humans or the environment.
- Soil Pollution: Soil pollution occurs when the presence of toxic chemicals, pollutants, or contaminants in the soil is high enough concentrations to be of risk to plants, wildlife, humans, and of course, the soil itself.
- Noise Pollution: Noise pollution is generally defined as regular exposure to elevated sound levels that may lead to adverse effects in humans or other living organisms.
- Light Pollution: Light pollution is a side effect of industrial civilization. Its sources include building exterior and interior lighting, advertising, commercial properties, offices, factories, streetlights, and illuminated sporting venues. The truth is that much outdoor lighting used at night is inefficient, overly bright, poorly targeted, improperly shielded, and, in many cases, completely unnecessary. These lights, and the electricity used to create it, are being wasted by spilling them into the sky, rather than focusing it on the actual objects and areas that people want to be illuminated.
- Radioactive Pollution: Radioactive pollution is defined as the physical pollution of living organisms and their environment as a result of the release of radioactive substances into the environment during nuclear explosions and testing of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon production and decommissioning, mining of radioactive ores, handling and disposal of radioactive waste, and accidents at nuclear power plants.
- Thermal Pollution: Thermal pollution is defined as a sudden increase or decrease in temperature of a natural body of water, which may be an ocean, lake, river, or pond by human influence. This normally occurs when a plant or facility takes in water from a natural resource and puts it back with an altered temperature.
- Plastic Pollution: Plastic pollution is the accumulation of synthetic plastic products in the environment to the point where they can create problems for wildlife and their habitats as well as for human populations. Plastic pollution mainly consists of plastic bags, plastic water bottles, and/or microbeads.
- Visual Pollution: Visual pollution is an aesthetic issue, referring to the impacts of pollution that impair one’s ability to enjoy a vista or view. Visual pollution disturbs the visual areas of people by creating harmful changes in the natural environment.
Effects on Humans:
- Air pollution: Short-term effects, which are temporary, include illnesses such as pneumonia or bronchitis. Long-term effects can lead to a person’s death and can cause things like heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases. Nearly 2.5 million people die worldwide each year from the effects of air pollution.
- Water Pollution: Water pollution kills. It caused 1.8 million deaths in 2015, according to a study published in The Lancet. Every year, unsafe water sickens about 1 billion people. Diseases spread by unsafe water include cholera, giardia, and typhoid.
- Soil Pollution: Soil pollution can also cause a neuromuscular blockade as well as depression of the central nervous system, headaches, nausea, fatigue, eye irritation, and skin rash.
- Noise Pollution: Exposure to prolonged or excessive noise has been shown to cause a range of health problems ranging from stress, poor concentration, productivity losses in the workplace, and communication difficulties.
- Light Pollution: Is associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning, and obesity. Alarmingly, a Harvard study showed that artificial lighting may be linked to increased breast cancer rates
- Radioactive Pollution: Causes acute health effects such as skin burns and acute radiation syndrome. It can also result in long-term health effects such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
- Thermal Pollution: A significant temperature increase in the water can cause reproductive problems.
- Plastic Pollution: Chemicals in plastic, such as BPA, can be absorbed by the human body. Some can trigger various health effects and even alter hormones. High exposure can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
- Visual Pollution: Can cause distraction, eye fatigue, decreases in opinion diversity, and loss of identity.
Effects on the Environment:
- Air pollution: The World Health Organization reports that 98% of people in cities with populations over 100,000 live in places that fall short of air quality standards.
- Water Pollution: When contaminants affect a body of water, they can destroy an entire aquatic ecosystem. Water pollution sometimes causes algal blooms, stimulating plant and algae growth, but suffocating other organisms by compromising oxygen levels in the water.
- Soil Pollution: According to studies from Cornell University, much of our farmable soil is being washed away up to 40 times faster than it’s being put back.
- Noise Pollution: Experts say noise pollution can interfere with breeding cycles and rearing and is even hastening the extinction of some species.
- Light Pollution: Artificial lighting near waterways draws insects up from the water surface and toward the lighting source, disrupting food chains and weakening the local ecosystem.
- Radioactive Pollution: Exposure of radiation to the atmosphere means it is present even in soils. Radioactive substances in the soil react together with the various nutrients leading to the destruction of those nutrients, thus rendering the soil infertile and highly toxic.
- Thermal Pollution: Industrial cooling activities can cause elevated temperatures, and discharges of cold water below a large impoundment can affect streams.
- Plastic Pollution: Scientists estimate that 1 million seabirds are killed by consuming plastics every year, as are 100,000 mammals.
- Visual Pollution: Visual pollution can disrupt the schedules of wildlife, causing problems within many species. Light can be blocked leading to many nocturnal animals not being able to hunt.
What We Can Do
Pollution is the leading cause of many diseases, and many of its effects are still unknown. We can do many things to help. One of the most effective ways is carpooling. Carpooling with people can reduce the number of greenhouse gases emitted, and reduce air pollution. Another thing you can do is buy eco-friendly items. This can include reusable bags and recyclable materials. Using these items can reduce pollutants like plastic, thermal, and visual. Just by doing some simple things, great changes can be seen.
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