Pollution

Keywords

Pollution, physical, mechanical, biological, geological, chemical, destructive, recycling, devices, pollutant, unnatural.

Introduction

When we think of pollution, we often think about things like air pollution. While this is true, it is only one aspect of pollution. Let's take a closer look at what pollution involves.

Let's Start with a Video

Physical Pollution

This is where we put things into the environment and it causes troubles with it. This includes landfill. When we put materials into the environment, they are called pollutants. You may know that we recycle a lot of materials, as they can be used again, but what happens to the bits that don't get recycled?

Some of it can be burnt down (using an incinerator), but the majority of it will end up in a landfill area, where it just eventually gets covered over to decompose (or not, depending on the pollutant).

Mechanical Pollution

You have a mobile phone, don't you? You're probably viewing this page on it right now. If not, then you at least have a laptop or desktop computer where you are viewing this. Now, fast forward a couple of years, and you buy a new device, which means your old one will no longer be required for you, so you either sell it on, or just get rid of it.

When you get rid of it, it can also end up in landfill, but that device has so much inside it, you'd be surprised at just how much it would be worth if it was split apart, and later sold on. A laptop can carry quite a bit of gold in it, as it is a good conductor of electricity, and fast. This means that they use it to conduct between paths on a printed circuit board, etc.

Mechanical pollution is a collection of all these devices - it does include other devices, such as fridges, freezers, microwaves, ovens, and so on - and when they are left in the landfill, they can cause more pollution than regular waste.

Biological Pollution

This covers a whole range of different aspects - from air pollutants inside our homes, bacteria, moulds, mildew, house dust, and pollen, among others. It includes viruses, too, which are passed on through human to human contact, or animal to animal contact. This isn't just centred on what biological factors are included in the home, but also out in ecosystems. In the outside world, aspects such as pollen, moulds, bacteria, viruses, and other aspects can affect an ecosystem much in the same way it can your home.

Interesting fact: when NASA launch a rocket or space shuttle, it produces 28 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Compare this to a car's production over a month, which is around half a ton. The amount of pollutant that this generates as much as the size of New York City over a weekend.

Geological Pollution

For a geological view on pollutants, it can include things like soils being contaminated, Mercury deposits in the ground, landslides and more. It can mean the wrong things in the wrong place at the wrong time, such as floods (anyone remember the Boscastle floods in 2004?) or the sea erosion that's been happening on the North Norfolk coast? Although we may think of these as natural disasters, they are also geological pollution - take Boscastle for instance, if you've read any of my interesting facts, you may know that an oak tree will soak up 50 gallons of water a day. Had there been more trees planted around the area, there might not have been such a bad flood. Although, there were other attributes, as you can read on here in this article.

Chemical Pollution

A chemical pollutant is something that is considered to be unnatural in the ecosystem, and it means that there is a rise or decrease in level of the chemical. It could mean a once fertile piece of land may become barren due to lack of water, or an overuse of weed killers. Let's face it, we all use a weed killer on our paths that have overgrown with grasses and weeds.

A lot of the time, a chemical pollutant is something that has had human activity - manufacturing areas, handling, storing and disposing of chemicals. Places like an oil refinery, coal power plants and agricultural use of insecticides.

Destructive Pollution

This type of pollution is concerning, as we have cut down a lot of forest areas for use in construction and paper making, as well as other uses. But we do seem to be changing for the better. More and more companies are now using recycled materials, or sustainable materials to make their products with.