WATER POLLUTION

Water pollution can be defined in many ways. Usually, it means one or more substances have built up in
water to such an extent that they cause problems for animals or people. Oceans, lakes, rivers, and other
inland waters can naturally clean up a certain amount of pollution by dispersing it harmlessly.

CAUSE

Most water pollution doesn't begin in the water itself. Take the oceans: around 80 percent of ocean
pollution enters our seas from the land. Virtually any human activity can have an effect on the quality of
our water environment.

Sewage Nutrients Waste water Chemical waste Radioactive waste Oil pollution Plastics Alien
species

EFFECT

Take oil spills, for example. They can happen if tankers are too poorly built to survive accidents at sea.
But the economic benefit of compromising on tanker quality brings an economic cost when an oil spill
occurs. The oil can wash up on nearby beaches, devastate the ecosystem, and severely affect tourism.
The main problem is that the people who bear the cost of the spill (typically a small coastal community)
are not the people who caused the problem in the first place (the people who operate the tanker). Yet,
arguably, everyone who puts gasoline (petrol) into their caror uses almost any kind of petroleum-
fueled transportcontributes to the problem in some way. So oil spills are a problem for everyone, not
just people who live by the coast and tanker operates.

Sewage is another good example of how pollution can affect us all. Sewage discharged into coastal
waters can wash up on beaches and cause a health hazard. People who bathe or surf in the water can
fall ill if they swallow polluted wateryet sewage can have other harmful effects too: it can poison
shellfish (such as cockles and mussels) that grow near the shore. People who eat poisoned shellfish risk
suffering from an acuteand sometimes fatalillness called paralytic shellfish poisoning. Shellfish is no
longer caught along many shores because it is simply too polluted with sewage or toxic chemical wastes
that have discharged from the land nearby.

Air Pollution

Air lets our living planet breatheit's the mixture of gases that fills the atmosphere, giving life to the
plants and animals that make Earth such a vibrant place. Broadly speaking, air is almost entirely made
up of two gases (78 percent nitrogen and 21 percent oxygen), with a few other gases (such as carbon
dioxide and argon) present in absolutely minute quantities. We can breathe ordinary air all day long with
no ill effects, so let's use that simple fact to define air pollution, something like this:

Air pollution is a gas (or a liquid or solid dispersed through ordinary air) released in a big enough
quantity to harm the health of people or other animals, kill plants or stop them growing properly,
damage or disrupt some other aspect of the environment (such as making buildings crumble), or cause
some other kind of nuisance (reduced visibility, perhaps, or an unpleasant odor).

Cause

Traffic

There are something like a half billion cars on the road todayone for every two people in rich
countries such as the United States. Virtually all of them are powered by gasoline and diesel engines
that burn petroleum to release energy.

Power plants

Renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines are helping us generate a bigger
proportion of our power every year, but the overwhelming majority of electricity (around 70 percent in
the United States, for example) is still produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil, mostly
in conventional power plants.

Industrial plants and factories

Plants that produce the goods we all rely on often release small but significant quantities of pollution
into the air. Industrial plants that produce metals such as aluminum and steel, refine petroleum,
produce cement, synthesize plastic, or make other chemicals are among those that can produce harmful
air pollution

Effect

Human health

We know air pollution is a bad thing without even thinking about it. Have you ever coughed when a
truck drove past belching out its sooty exhaust? Instinctively, you cough to clear your lungs and protect
your body and you might even cover your face with your handkerchief or sleeve to filter the air until it
feels safe to breathe deeply again.

Agricultural effects

Farming is as much of an art as a science; crops can thriveor failfor all sorts of reasons. One of the
things that characterized the 20th century was the huge growth in industrial agricultureusing
fertilizers, pesticides, and so on to increase crop yields and feed the world's ever-growing population.