Category archive for Pollution

Water Pollution Has A Number Of Consequences

Groundwater a diverse range of contaminants wind up in our earths’ lakes, rivers, streams,& eventually the oceans, ranging from large pieces of debris to invisible compounds. Drought, inefficiency, &  an increasing population have all contribute to  freshwater crisis, endangering the sources we depend on for drinking water & other essential requirements.

One pollutant in particular, PFAS, or poly and perfluoroalkyl compounds, has been discovered to be more frequent in our tap water than previously believed. PFAS is utilized in common things to make them resistant to water, heat, & stains; a few of these compounds have such lengthy half-lives that they’re dubbed “the eternal chemical.”

Water security is critical since, despite the fact that water covers approximately 70% of the globe, just 2.5 percent of that is fresh. Only 1% of groundwater is easily accessible, with the remainder of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields that are inaccessible. See also the Air pollution.

Water Pollution Has A Number Of Consequences.

Water contamination can be caused by a number of factors. Pollution can reach water directly, either legally or illegally, through factory discharges or inadequate water treatment plants, for example. Water supplies can be contaminated by spills & leaks from oil pipelines and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations. Wind, storms, and litter, particularly plastic waste, can all cause debris to enter waterways.

The biggest cause of water quality concerns in the United States is now “nonpoint source contamination,” which occurs when pollutants are spread across or via ground by rain & melted snow, thanks to decades of legislation & legal action against huge polluters.

Fertilizers, pesticides, & herbicides from farms & residences, as well as oil and harmful chemicals from highways and industries, silt, pathogens from animals, pet waste, and other contaminants, can all be found in runoff.

Finally, if the water is not properly cleaned, drinking water pollution can occur through the pipes, as happened in the case of Pb pollution in Flint, Michigan, & other communities. Arsenic, another pollutant in drinking water, can arise from both naturally occurring deposits and industrial waste.

Effects Of Freshwater Pollution

Human health issues, poisoned wildlife, & long-term ecosystem harm can all occur from water pollution.  Excess nutrients including  nitrogen & phosphorus from industrial and agricultural runoff often drive algal blooms, which subsequently create dead spots, or low-oxygen regions where fish&  aquatic life could no longer survive.

Algae blooms can have negative health and economic consequences for humans, producing rashes and other diseases, as well as reducing tourism earnings at popular lake sites due to their foul odors and appearance.

Nitrate levels in water caused by nutrient pollution can be especially detrimental to infant, interfering with their ability to supply oxygen to tissues and perhaps causing “blue baby syndrome.”

According to the United Nations Food & Agriculture, agricultural contamination threatens 38 % of the European Union’s water bodies.

Unsanitary water sources have a global health impact within form of disease. As per the WHO, at minimum 2 billion people drink water tainted by excrement, and this water can spread severe diseases like cholera and typhoid.

Solutions For Freshwater Contamination

Many countries have enacted restrictions prohibiting business and agriculture from discharging contaminants into lakes, streams, & rivers, while treatment facilities ensure that our drinking water is safe to drink. Other methods of pollution prevention and cleanup are being researched by scientists.

Africa Flores, a National Geographic grantee, has developed an artificial intelligence model to better anticipate when algal blooms would occur. Several experts are researching strategies to reduce & clean up plastic pollution.

However, there have been setbacks. Pollution regulation is subject to shifting political winds, as evidenced by the recent relaxing of environmental laws that barred landowner from polluting the country’s waterways in the United States.

Anyone may contribute to the protection of watersheds by properly disposing of motor oil, paint, & other harmful items, keeping them off the road and out of the drain. Keep in mind that everything you flush &  pour down the sink could end up in the water.

Use phosphate-free detergents & wash your car at  professional car wash, which is obliged to safely dispose of wastewater, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. Green roofs  &  rain gardens can assist people in constructed environments recreate a few of the natural filtration that woods & plants often provide.

What Is Air Pollution And How Does It Affect You?

Air pollution is defined as the release of contaminants into the atmosphere that are harmful to human health & the environment as a whole. As per the WHO, air pollution kills approximately seven million people per year around the world. 9/10 people now breathe air which exceeds the WHO’s pollution guideline levels, with those in low- &  middle-income nations bearing the brunt of the burden.

The Clean Air Act, which was passed in 1970, empowers the US Environmental Protection Agency EPA to protect public health by controlling the emissions of these dangerous air pollutants.

What Causes Pollution In The Air?

“Most air pollution is caused by energy usage and production,” says John Walke, head of the NRDC’s Climate & Clean Energy program’s Clean Air Project. “When fossil fuels are burned, gases and chemicals are released into the atmosphere.” And, in a particularly damaging feedback loop, air contamination not only leads to but also exacerbates climate change.

According to Walke, “air pollution inside the form of Co2& methane raises the earth’s temperature.” “When the temperature is warmer and there is more UV radiation, another sort of air pollution, smog, is worsened by which increased heat.” Mold (due to wet conditions produced by extreme weather & increased flooding) and pollen production are both increasing as a result of climate change due to  longer pollen season.

“Thanks to  Clean Air Act, we’ve made significant progress in increasing air quality in the U.s over the last 50 years,” said Kim Knowlton, senior researcher & deputy head of the NRDC Science Center. On the other hand, climate change makes it more difficult to comply with environmental rules in the future. These regulations are in place to protect human health.

Air Pollution’s Consequences

The effects of Air pollution on  human body vary depending on the type of pollutant, the time and intensity of exposure, and other factors such as a person’s personal health dangers, as well as the combined impacts of a number of different contaminants or stressors.

Soot And Smog

These are the most common types of pollution in the air. When pollutants from burning fossil fuels interact with sunlight, smog (also known as ground-level ozone) forms. Soot (also called as particulate matter is made up of microparticles of chemical, soil, smoke, dirt, or allergies that are transported in the air as gas or solids.

Smog and soot have similar sources. “Both come from automobiles and trucks, industries, power stations, incinerators, engines, and basically anything which combust fossil fuels like coal, gas, and natural gas,” explains Walke.

Smog may irritate the eyes & throat, as well as harm the lungs, particularly in children, the elderly, and those who work &  exercise outside. People who already suffer from asthma or allergies have it even worse because the added pollutants have the potential to make their symptoms even worse and to bring on asthma episodes.

The tiniest airborne particle of soot, whether gaseous and solid, can infiltrate the lungs and bloodstream, worsening bronchitis, causing heart attacks, and even hastening death.

Because highways & polluting facilities have often been built in or near low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, the detrimental consequences of pollution have been disproportionately felt by residents of these areas. According to the Society of Concerned Scientists, Asian Americans were exposed to 34 percent more soot than other Americans on average in 2019. The exposure rate was 24  % relater for Black folks and 23 percent higher for Latinos.

Air pollution

This is a video about pollution.

To be more specific, it is a video about “air pollution”. In this video we have tried to highlight on problems that’s have been creating for pollution & why are these causing. This video has been made for the better understanding  about what is air pollution, what are the bad effect of its, why it causes etc. 

We have discussed it widely in our previous articles. This video is only a part of that article. This is about “Air Pollution” but there are lots of different type of pollution in our environment which we have mentioned early. We would love to make more videos on environment pollution in future if you give us full support.

Water pollution

One of the most important things is that you are not drinking polluted water when you want to drink it. In this article we will discuss about water pollution. Water pollution can caused for many reasons. One of the most dangerous water pollution is arsenic pollution.

Among many water pollution causes arsenic pollution is serious problem. You have to make sure that the water you are drinking is free from arsenic in order to protect your health from serious health injury. You have to be sure that you water purifier is able to purify arsenic from water.
 
Water is an important element of the human body.

Almost 65% of a human body is water. We cannot quench our thirst without water. Now think that what will happen if you are not able to ensure safe drinking water. Many things can happen when you will fail to ensure safe drinking water. Chemical contamination in drinking water is one of them. Arsenic contamination in one of them. In fact it is the leading one.
 
Contamination in drinking water is an age old problem.

Arsenic contamination is a recent problem though the chemical element “arsenic” has been discovered in 1250. Arsenic as a pollutant on water is not much older. It mainly cause for the industrial waste dumped into water or other contaminated element dumped into water directly.

We know that soil can filter any kind of elements. When these pollutants drops down to earth, it definitely cause land pollution. But that’s not the end, soil filter those pollutants and distinguish the contaminated elements from it. Surface water is a great source of pure drinking water. But when those contaminated elements reach to that source than water pollution causes.

Arsenic poisoning

 
Arsenic poisoning is harmful to human health; there is no doubt about it. But there is a measurement. Certain amount of arsenic in not that much harmful. When this level is exceed than arsenic poisoning symptoms appears.

It’s very threatening when you find arsenic in your drinking water. What would be your thought when you will be informed that your source of drinking is contaminated by arsenic? A minimum amount of arsenic in water is acceptable. But when the amount exceeds the limit than it became life threatening.

Presence of arsenic in drinking is direct threat to your health and life also. Several life threatening disease can cause for arsenic contamination. In a resent survey it has been found that several negative effects on our body can happen due to arsenic pollution.

One of the greatest arsenic poisoning symptoms that can happen from arsenic Contamination in drinking water is cancer. When the amount of arsenic is high on the source of water and a person is drinking that from a long period of time, than he or she can suffer from cancer.

Types of cancer can vary from person to person & country to country. Amount of arsenic and consuming time of drinking water should also be listed. There may be various types of cancer for arsenic contamination, such as bladder cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, liver cancer and kidney cancer.

Many scientists believe that arsenic pollution causes birth defects. Arsenic pollutants slowly poison our body and cause serious damage of our peripheral nerve system. It creates harmful layer between our nerves and blood vessels. There are many other types of arsenic poisoning symptoms.

The main problem of arsenic pollution is that it could not easily detected. The process of arsenic contamination is very lengthy process. In several case studies it has seen that arsenic contamination is detected after a long period of time as 6 or 10 years.

Suppose you are drinking arsenic contaminated water for two or three months. It’s not enough to detect arsenic problem. Even the effects of arsenic pollution are not visible in many cases. This is why arsenic contamination is one of the dangerous water pollution causes.

So it is important for us to be aware of arsenic contamination. For that we have to be conscious about our drinking water. We should know what we are drinking. It should be remembered that water is vital element to live & other members of my family is also drinking it. So we should stay safe & make other members of our family protected from arsenic contamination.

What is Indoor air pollution

I am pretty much sure that you have clear concept on pollution, especially on air pollution.

You know what is air pollution and for what reason it happens. We all know what air pollution is but many of us didn’t know that we can categorize air pollution into two parts.

1. Indoor air pollution

2. Outdoor air pollution.

To common people air pollution only happens in the open road/area. They have no idea about indoor air pollution. They cannot even imagine indoor air pollution as pollution. In this topic we will try  to discuss about:

  • What is indoor air pollution?
  • Why it causes?
  • Who/what is responsible for it?

 

Now come to the first point, what is indoor air pollution?

The answer is very simple. When air polluted by those destructive and harmful elements/pollutants that comes from those equipment which we generally use in home for our daily comfort.

I am not telling that all the home equipment’s are bad. But there is some high configured machine that is causing air pollution. We are using those for our personal benefits. It is also true that indoor air pollution doesn’t cause for only the equipment, other things are responsible too.

The causes of air pollution

 
It’s time to talk about second topic, why it causes?

If I want to answer this in simple the answer would be easy. It’s our ignorance which is mainly responsible for it. Besides that the other elements are also responsible. We have to remember that those elements are used by us. So directly or indirectly the responsibility comes to us.

Another reason may be culture and trends of society. The culture of any developed country or mega city. The people in Australia, Canada or New York get used to with this kind of pollution because of their social trends.
 
The last topic of this article is who/what is responsible for it? I kind of answered this question before but now I would like to focus more detail. Let us think it like a story.

Mr. jone lives in New York. He come back from work & starts the air conditioner to heat up the room. Then he fires the stove and makes a nice cup of coffee. Than he sit in front of the TV set & enjoys his coffee with a cigarette. No traffic noise can disturb him because the window was closed.

This is a common matter in those cities. What we can get from this? There are some regular activities of jone which is quite normal but if we can look deeply there are some problems. Some activities of jone is causing indoor air pollution. Now you will ask me which one is causing pollution.
 
Let’s take a close look.

Air conditioner of jone is creating CFC gas.When he was making coffee then the stove was burning oxygen and producing other harmful gas.Smoking of jone is producing lots of harmful chemical gas.By closing window jone stops all kind of flow of air.

We have an analysis on the topic and tried to understand about air pollution (indoor). Air pollution is a great problem. Indoor air pollution is only a part of it. Indoor air pollution can easily be stopped or reduced. How we can solve the indoor air pollution will be discussed in next post.
 
If you are a smoker than this article might hurt your fillings because I will try to discuss about the bad effect of smoking. Let me tell you that my approach will be different than your thought. Many of you will think that I will tell you “smoking is bad”  “don’t smoke”  “it’s bad for your health”.

I won’t tell you that because I know that you already know that. Infect all the smoker do. Today my point will be “smoking is harmful for health, but it is also harmful for environment”. Yes smoking does create harmful effect on environment.

It’s a common thought of almost every smoker that “I know that by smoking I am doing harm to my health. So what? It’s my choice”. If you really think like this than please let me say that you are not right at all. Doing like this also affect others heath also.

What do you think; environment means only air, water, land and sky? No, human are also important part of environment. By affecting them you are also affecting the environment. It is just one side of a coin.

The story of other part of the coin is that by smoking a smoker is contributing harm directly to the environment.  There are some points that the smoker should know before they smoke. I will discuss those points in other article but a smoker should remind himself one thing very clearly that they are not only causing harm to their self but also they are contributing harm to the environment.
 

Water pollution

 
Raindrops are falling on my headand just like the guy who’s feet are too big for his bed,nothing seems to fit those, raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling…

Many of us have heard of this song. This song is so classical that whenever I listen to this song, my mind fills up with joy. It’s obvious that Rain plays an important role in environment. It’s an important part of environmental cycle. Rain also tunes our emotion. It’s a symbol of romanticism. When it starts raining we feel great pleasure like a cord of piano. Rain has helped human to create great literature.

But what will happen if the Rain turns in to horror. What if the symbol of romanticism threats you of your life? Can you imagine that rain drops could be a cause of death?

If the dangerous situation described above are true then what will happen? Unfortunately rain can cause dangerous damage when the rain drops turn into acid instead of water. Acid rain was first discovered in 1852 by an English chemist & the name of the chemist is Robert Angus.

What is acid rain?

Now i will define acid rain. Acid rain means the precipitation of rain drops that is toxic by harmful elements such as hydrogen ions (which contain low level of pH), harmful gas carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxides & nitrogen oxides.

These elements pollutes total atmosphere. Particularly this cause water pollution.  Mainly these occur from nitrogen & sulfur dioxide released from cars or other types of vehicle. Industrial chemical waste that is dumped into water is also an cause of acid rain.

Point to be noted that acid rain could be precipitated anything such as water, snow, hail, fog & pieces of ice. Among these entire elements one thing will be common – they all will be acidic.

We can learn from this acid rain essay is that there are two way of acid rain:

  • Dry or non-wet deposition

    •                   

  • Wet or liquid deposition

Now these term refers should be explained. These are also the causes of acid rain.
 

Dry or non-wet deposition

There are many area where the climate is dry in nature & here the dry deposition occurs. Chemicals from industrial factories transferred into dry dust or may be smoke & than it mixed up into ground through non-wet deposition. This dry deposition is polluting not only ground but also other materials.

These dry deposited gases and particles can be washed from these surfaces by rainstorms, leading to increased runoff. This runoff water makes the resulting mixture more acidic. About half of the acidity in the atmosphere falls back to earth through dry deposition.
 

Wet or liquid deposition

It is easily understandable that these kinds of depositions are not solid. Some example of Wet or liquid deposition are snow fall, heavy fog & rain.

There is no doubt that all the elements will be harmful. When local area is polluted by acidic chemical then it’s quite possible that the acid rain will fall in the form of those elements (acidic rain fall, heavy fog & snow).  

In wet deposition mainly the weather is wet in nature. Let us think deeply about this matter, acid rain or acid pollution is creating from the very land that we are living on and after traveling atmosphere it is returning back to our ground.

These polluted elements are being mixed into the soil. It is not only polluting the structure of soil but also the plants & animals are being harmed by it. Of course the effect is different from land to land. The measurement of pollution to fish in the water, animal on the forest would also be different.