One of the common concerns in today’s world is pollution. Pollution is something that contaminates the environment by a chemical that renders part of the environment unfit for the intended use. It causes mainly from gases and other detrimental things that soil the earth and fills the air with toxins. These hazardous contaminants and toxins cause great harm to the environment by making it polluted.
With the increased number of the population, the pollution is also proliferating. This increased pollution is not only affecting the health of human beings but also damaging the natural beauty around us. Today almost 50% of the world is affected by pollution, which is making the earth unsafe to survive on.
How does pollution cause?
There are countless reasons for how our world with a healthy feel of the breeze and fresh air turned polluted and the significant contribution is from human beings. Compared to any other causes of pollution, it is human beings who are making this problem reach peaks. Some of the common mistakes that people are doing, which in turn increasing pollution in this beautiful world are:
- Agricultural activities – Though agriculture is the process of producing food, feed and fibre by the cultivation of different types of plants yet is becoming one of the common reasons for pollution. Some of the activities performed here in agricultural lands like the use of insecticides, fertilizers and pesticides are very dangerous. They emit harmful chemicals into the air, and these hazardous gases cause pollution.
- Manufacturing Industries – Manufacturing industries contributes a lot to air and water pollution. Though industrialization is significant for the development of society yet is proven as one of the significant contributors to pollution. Since the everyday activity performed in any manufacturing industry involve the heating of raw material. This activity, in turn, damages fresh air and water and makes it polluted.
- Impact of mining – Though mining is economically important to producing regions and countries yet is believed as one of the common causes of a polluted world. The process of mining wherein materials below the earth are extracted usually spreads lots of pollution into the air and water. Dust and chemicals that are released during the digging of soil using large equipment cause lots of pollution.
- Burning of fossil fuels – Usage of fossil fuels is very high in today’s modern world where it is mainly used for electricity, used as a source of fuel for vehicles and also used in many industrial applications. However, in the process of burning these fossil fuels, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides are two harmful gases that are released into the atmosphere. These toxic gases combine with water droplets when raining and turn it acidic. This acid rain causes considerable damage to all living organisms.
- Climate change – Also called global warming and is a steady rise in earth’s surface temperature, which is usually caused by vehicles, factories and power plants. This often traps heat around the earth which in turn makes the environment polluted.
Different types of pollution
Have you ever wondered how many kinds of pollution affect the world? The common problem in today’s highly-populated world is pollution. Referring to the process of damaging land, water and air, pollution is mainly divided into three different types, namely water pollution, air pollution and soil pollution. Though these three types of pollution are inter-related with each other yet cause various problems to the life of human beings, plants, animals and many other creatures.
Air Pollution – It is one of the common types of pollutions that are increasing day-by-day because of many different activities performed by human beings like, burning of fuel, burning of raw material, and release of dangerous gases. There are again six sub-types of air pollution available like:
- Particle pollution
- Carbon monoxide
- Ground-level ozone
- Nitrogen oxides
- Leads
- Sulphur oxide
All the air, as mentioned earlier pollution causes a high impact on human health and other living organisms.
Water pollution – There are many reasons for the freshwater in this world to turn into polluted. Some of the common causes of water pollution are Accidental oil leakage, mining activities, sewage, leakage from sewer lines and industrial waste. In simple terms, water pollution is usually caused by harmful substances like chemicals and microorganisms.
Municipal and industrial waste discharges are the main contributions for polluted water on this earth. Most of the industries and individuals directly dump random junk into waste ways which in turn makes water polluted easily. Increase in water pollution drastically reduces oxygen levels in the water, which in turn suffocates plants, animals and entire wildlife.
Soil Pollution – Anything that degrades the quality of soil is commonly known as soil pollution. Presence of many toxic chemicals like pesticides, naphthalene, petroleum hydrocarbons and herbicides are some of the common causes of soil pollution, which in turn poses a risk to human health. Same as water and air pollution industrial activities, agricultural activities and individual activities are common reasons for increased soil pollution today.
One of the common causes of soil pollution is fuel leakage which gets washed away into nearby soil and makes it polluted. Soil pollution is highly health threatening which may lead to issues like skin disease, respiratory diseases and many more. It mostly affects the people living in degraded land. Contribution of common-man for a pollution-free environment
Majority of people in today’s world are in a wrong perception where they think pollution is widespread due to frequent industrial and agricultural activities. However, if one takes specific responsibilities and precautions, then the percentage of pollution can be decreased to a great extent. Apart from industrial and agricultural, the contribution of a common man is also very high in the polluted world so if one follows specific rules like avoid dumping waste into water, stop burning trees and avoid using plastic are some of the simple yet significant contributions for a pollution-free environment.
Though it may not completely wipe away pollution yet can decrease it to some extent which in turn helps our next generation to live a healthy life than making it complicated.
