Introduction to Pollution

Pollution refers to the harmful impact that unwanted changes happening in our environment have on our planet and its living beings like humans, animals, and plants. When we talk about the introduction to pollution, we can say it is when the purity of our environment gets destroyed or contaminated. The major source of this is man-made waste only.

In simpler terms, our residing planet gets contaminated because of our activities. Moreover, the impact of the pollutants created by human beings affects other living things as well. It is because we all share the same environment.

Forms of Pollution

When learning about introduction to pollution, it is important to understand the different forms of pollution. Living things are dependent on non-living parts for their survival. Thus, plants, animals and humans depend on land, air and water for survival.

Ultimately, these parts have to bear the impact of pollution. Mostly, it happens because of economic gains that are implemented for a short time but end up creating a long-term impact on our ecological system. When we talk about the introduction of environmental pollution, we’ll look at major forms of pollution such as:

Air Pollution 

It occurs when chemicals and particulates get released into our atmosphere. It includes the gaseous pollutants that are pretty common like CFCs, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and others.

Water Pollution

It occurs due to the wastewater produced by industrial and domestic sources. This wastewater enters our surface waters and starts contaminating them. It happens due to untreated sewage, pesticides, fertilizers, human faeces, industrial waste, and more.

Noise Pollution

This kind of pollution includes the noise that arises from roadways, aircraft, industries, and other sources producing high-intensity noise.

Soil Pollution

In soil pollution, chemicals seep through the soil either through spills or leakage underground. The major soil pollutants include pesticides, hydrocarbons, herbicides, fertilizers, and more.

Electromagnetic Pollution

It occurs when there is excess electromagnetic radiation. For instance, in metropolitan cities, there is constant exposure to radio waves. This radiation is not considered healthy for humans.

Other types of Pollution

Now that the major types of pollution have been discussed in the introduction to pollution, we will move on to other types of pollution that one must be aware of. They include light pollution which means trespassing of light, excessive illumination, etc.

After that, we have littering which refers to throwing away unsuitable objects that are man-made onto properties that are made for public and private use. Another important type of pollution is plastic pollution.

It occurs when plastic products get accumulated in the environment. It starts having adverse effects on our wildlife, their habitat, and even human beings. Thermal pollution is also a kind of pollution in which change in temperature occurs in natural water bodies mostly due to human activities.

Effects of Pollution

It is important to discuss the impact pollution has when we’re learning about introduction to pollution. The first and foremost effect is that our air quality gets reduced drastically. It results in hampering the health of humans as well as the growth of our vegetation.

Further, it also results in acid deposition. Ultimately, it degrades our terrestrial environment. Moreover, secondary particles that form due to pollution also have adverse effects on human health.

The greenhouse effect also increases due to pollution. As a result, climate change and global warming start happening at a greater rate. Pollution also destroys the stratospheric ozone. It results in an increase in UV radiation.

Another major effect of the introduction of pollution on our planet is an increase in pollen. With this increase, allergies all over the world are also increasing and impacting the lives of people all across the world.

As the increase in global temperature is taking place extensively, the atmosphere that protects us is getting polluted by harmful gases. In turn, it is melting the icecaps. Therefore, we have weather problems happening at a drastic rate.

Pollution Control

As our planet is getting polluted drastically, we need pollution control to resolve these issues. It refers to controlling the emissions and effluents so that they do not get released into our water, soil, and air.

Pollution cannot be complete without pollution control. If we do not control pollution, there will be excess waste products that result from overconsumption.

Further, there will be other activities of mining, agriculture, etc. that will degrade our environment greatly. If we look at it in terms of hierarchy, then we see that preventing pollution and minimizing our waste is more popular than pollution control.

There are different pollution practices that can be adopted for making the environment better. One thing that each one of us can do is recycle. Similarly, every individual and organisation must practice reusing.

Further, there must be minimization of waste and pollution prevention (P2). It means lowering the levels of waste that we create and release into the environment. Then, another important technique is compost which works to fertilize and enhance the soil.

Conclusion

Pollution is a global problem that all of us are facing right now. While it is true that urban areas have more pollution than the countryside, that does not mean that it is not spreading to other remote places. It is affecting the vegetation, animals, and humans. As a result, the lifestyle of people is being changed drastically. Thus, we need to take pollution control seriously and do our bit to ensure that we reduce the levels of pollution to make the planet a healthier and greener place.