Assignment no.

ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION
Pollution, also called environmental pollution, the addition of any substance
(solid, liquid, or gas) or any form of energy (such as heat, sound, or radioactivity) to
the environment at a rate faster than it can be dispersed, diluted, decomposed, recycled, or
stored in some harmless form. The major kinds of pollution, usually classified by environment,
are air pollution, water pollution, and land pollution. Modern society is also concerned about
specific types of pollutants, such as noise pollution, light pollution, and plastic pollution.
Pollution of all kinds can have negative effects on the environment and wildlife and often
impacts human health and well-being.

History of pollution

Although environmental pollution can be caused by natural events such as forest

fires and active volcanoes, use of the word pollution generally implies that the contaminants
have an anthropogenic source—that is, a source created by human activities. Pollution has
accompanied humankind ever since groups of people first congregated and remained for a
long time in any one place. Indeed, ancient human settlements are frequently recognized by
their wastes—shell mounds and rubble heaps, for instance. Pollution was not a serious
problem as long as there was enough space available for each individual or group. However,
with the establishment of permanent settlements by great numbers of people, pollution
became a problem, and it has remained one ever since.

Cities of ancient times were often noxious places, fouled by human wastes and debris.
Beginning about 1000 CE, the use of coal for fuel caused considerable air pollution, and the
conversion of coal to coke for iron smelting beginning in the 17th century exacerbated the
problem. In Europe, from the Middle Ages well into the early modern era, unsanitary urban
conditions favoured the outbreak of population-decimating epidemics of disease,
from plague to cholera and typhoid fever. Through the 19th century, water and air pollution
and the accumulation of solid wastes were largely problems of congested urban areas. But,
with the rapid spread of industrialization and the growth of the human population to
unprecedented levels, pollution became a universal problem.

By the middle of the 20th century, an awareness of the need to protect air, water, and
land environments from pollution had developed among the general public. In particular, the
publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring focused attention on environmental
damage caused by improper use of pesticides such as DDT and other persistent chemicals that
accumulate in the food chain and disrupt the natural balance of ecosystems on a wide scale. In
response, major pieces of environmental legislation, such as the Clean Air Act (1970) and
the Clean Water Act (1972; United States), were passed in many countries to control
and mitigate environmental pollution.

Giving voice to the growing conviction of most of the scientific community about the
reality of anthropogenic global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and
the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to help address greenhouse gas emissions.
An IPCC special report produced in 2018 noted that human beings and human activities have
been responsible for a worldwide average temperature increase between 0.8 and 1.2 °C (1.4
and 2.2 °F) since preindustrial times, and most of the warming over the second half of the 20th
century could be attributed to human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.

Pollution control

The presence of environmental pollution raises the issue of pollution control. Great
efforts are made to limit the release of harmful substances into the environment through air
pollution control, wastewater treatment, solid-waste management, hazardous-waste
management, and recycling. Unfortunately, attempts at pollution control are
often surpassed by the scale of the problem, especially in less-developed countries. Noxious
levels of air pollution are common in many large cities, where particulates and gases from
transportation, heating, and manufacturing accumulate and linger. The problem of plastic
pollution on land and in the oceans has only grown as the use of single-use plastics has
burgeoned worldwide. In addition, greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane and carbon
dioxide, continue to drive global warming and pose a great threat to biodiversity and public
health.

water pollution :
water pollution, the release of substances into subsurface groundwater or into lakes,
streams, rivers, estuaries, and oceans to the point where the substances interfere
with beneficial use of the water or with the natural functioning of ecosystems. In addition to
the release of substances, such as chemicals, trash, or microorganisms, water pollution may
also include the release of energy, in the form of radioactivity or heat, into bodies of water.

Types and sources of water pollutants:

Water bodies can be polluted by a wide variety of substances, including pathogenic

microorganisms, putrescible organic waste, fertilizers and plant nutrients, toxic chemicals,
sediments, heat, petroleum (oil), and radioactive substances. Several types of water
pollutants are considered below. (For a discussion of the handling of sewage and other forms
of waste produced by human activities, see waste disposal and solid-waste management.)

Water pollutants come from either point sources or dispersed sources. A point source is
a pipe or channel, such as those used for discharge from an industrial facility or a
city sewerage system. A dispersed (or nonpoint) source is a very broad unconfined area from
which a variety of pollutants enter the water body, such as the runoff from an agricultural
area. Point sources of water pollution are easier to control than dispersed sources, because
the contaminated water has been collected and conveyed to one single point where it can be
treated. Pollution from dispersed sources is difficult to control, and, despite much progress in
the building of modern sewage-treatment plants, dispersed sources continue to cause a large
fraction of water pollution problems.

Domestic sewage

Domestic sewage is the primary source of pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms) and

putrescible organic substances. Because pathogens are excreted in feces, all sewage
from cities and towns is likely to contain pathogens of some type, potentially presenting a
direct threat to public health. Putrescible organic matter presents a different sort of threat to
water quality. As organics are decomposed naturally in the sewage by bacteria and other
microorganisms, the dissolved oxygen content of the water is depleted. This endangers the
quality of lakes and streams, where high levels of oxygen are required for fish and other
aquatic organisms to survive. Sewage-treatment processes reduce the levels of pathogens and
organics in wastewater, but they do not eliminate them completely (see also wastewater
treatment).

Domestic sewage is also a major source of plant nutrients, mainly nitrates and phosphates.
Excess nitrates and phosphates in water promote the growth of algae, sometimes causing
unusually dense and rapid growths known as algal blooms. When the algae die,
oxygen dissolved in the water declines because microorganisms use oxygen to digest algae
during the process of decomposition (see also biochemical oxygen demand). Anaerobic
organisms (organisms that do not require oxygen to live) then metabolize the organic wastes,
releasing gases such as methane and hydrogen sulfide, which are harmful to
the aerobic (oxygen-requiring) forms of life. The process by which a lake changes from a clean,
clear condition—with a relatively low concentration of dissolved nutrients and a balanced
aquatic community—to a nutrient-rich, algae-filled state and thence to an oxygen-deficient,
waste-filled condition is called eutrophication. Eutrophication is a naturally occurring, slow,
and inevitable process. However, when it is accelerated by human activity and water pollution
(a phenomenon called cultural eutrophication), it can lead to the premature aging and death
of a body of water.
The improper disposal of solid waste is a major source of water pollution. Solid waste includes
garbage, rubbish, electronic waste, trash, and construction and demolition waste, all of which
are generated by individual, residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial activities. The
problem is especially acute in developing countries that may lack infrastructure to properly
dispose of solid waste or that may have inadequate resources or regulation to limit improper
disposal. In some places solid waste is intentionally dumped into bodies of water. Land
pollution can also become water pollution if the trash or other debris is carried by animals,
wind, or rainfall to bodies of water. Significant amounts of solid waste pollution in inland
bodies of water can also eventually make their way to the ocean. Solid waste pollution is
unsightly and damaging to the health of aquatic ecosystems and can harm wildlife directly.
Many solid wastes, such as plastics and electronic waste, break down and leach harmful
chemicals into the water, making them a source of toxic or hazardous waste.
 Waste is considered toxic if it
is poisonous, radioactive, explosive, carcinogenic (causing cancer), mutagenic (causing damage
to chromosomes), teratogenic (causing birth defects), or bioaccumulative (that is, increasing in
concentration at the higher ends of food chains). Sources of toxic chemicals include
improperly disposed wastewater from industrial plants and chemical process facilities
(lead, mercury, chromium) as well as surface runoff containing pesticides used on agricultural
areas and suburban lawns (chlordane, dieldrin, heptachlor). (For a more-detailed treatment of
toxic chemicals, see poison and toxic waste.)

Sediment

Sediment (e.g., silt) resulting from soil erosion or construction activity can be carried
into water bodies by surface runoff. Suspended sediment interferes with the penetration
of sunlight and upsets the ecological balance of a body of water. Also, it can disrupt the
reproductive cycles of fish and other forms of life, and when it settles out of suspension it can
smother bottom-dwelling organisms

Thermal pollution

Heat is considered to be a water pollutant because it decreases the capacity of water to

hold dissolved oxygen in solution, and it increases the rate of metabolism of fish.
Valuable species of game fish (e.g., trout) cannot survive in water with very low levels of
dissolved oxygen. A major source of heat is the practice of discharging cooling water from
power plants into rivers; the discharged water may be as much as 15 °C (27 °F) warmer than
the naturally occurring water. The rise in water temperatures because of global warming can
also be considered a form of thermal pollution.

Petroleum (oil) pollution

Petroleum (oil) pollution occurs when oil from roads and parking lots is carried in
surface runoff into water bodies. Accidental oil spills are also a source of oil pollution—as in
the devastating spills from the tanker Exxon Valdez (which released more than 260,000 barrels
in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989) and from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (which
released more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010). Oil slicks eventually
move toward shore, harming aquatic life and damaging recreation areas.