ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION

Pollution
Pollution is the action of environmental contamination with man-made waste. This includes mainly land, water, and air. Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the ecosystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms

Forms of pollution
Air Pollution Water Pollution Soil pollution Radioactive pollution Noise pollution Light pollution (includes light trespass, over illumination and astronomical interference. Visual pollution Thermal pollution Land Pollution

Land Pollution
Land pollution the action of environmental contamination with man-made waste on land. Americans generate five pounds of solid waste every day, furthermore creating one ton of solid waste each year. In an average day in the United States, people throw out 200,000 tons of edible food . The main human contributor to pollution are landfills. Approximately half of our trash is disposed in landfills.

Only 2% of our waste is actually recycled.

Air Pollution
These are following gases that are known as the air pollutants": 1. Carbon Dioxide 2. Carbon Monoxide 3. Sulfur Oxide 4. Nitrogen Oxide 5. Hydrocarbons (Benzene, Terpene, etc.) Particulates

Water Pollutants
The source of this waste could be raw sewage, chemicals, trash, or fertilizer. They can be categorized as 1. Inorganic pollutants 2. Organic pollutants 3. Sediments 4. Heat 5. Radioactive pollutant 6. Water pollution by heavy metals

Inorganic pollutants
This group consists of inorganic salts, mineral acids, finely divided metals or metal compounds, complexes of metals with organics in natural water, organometallic compounds, trace elements and acid mine drainage. Several trace elements (few ppm) are found in polluted water. The most dangerous among them are heavy metals e.g. As (V), Cd, Cu, Hg, Cr etc and metalloids As, Se and Sb. Organic pollutants This group includes, oxygen demanding wastes, plant nutrients, sewage, synthetic organic compounds, pesticides, detergents and oils. Decrease in dissolve oxygen (DO) value is an index of pollution mainly due to organic matter e.g. sewage, industrial wastes from food processing plants, paper mills and tanneries, meatpacking plants, runoff from agricultural lands etc. Polluted water causes immense harm to public health. The water borne diseases are typhoid, and paratyphoid fevers, dysentery and cholera, polio and infectious hepatitis. Production and disposal of pesticides, petrochemicals, detergents etc. aggravates the pollution problem.

Sediments Sediments are important repositories for trace metals. They also contain high level of organic matter in sediments. Detrimental increase in sediments in water is due to natural process of soil erosion. It represents the most extensive pollutants of surface waters. Heat Rise in temperature decrease dissolve oxygen in water, which affects fish and other aquatic life adversely. The industrial, municipal and wastes from agricultural practices are major contributor. Radioactive pollutant Radioactive pollution includes liquid and gaseous wastes from fuel, elements, low level radioactive wastes, various components of radioactive fall out, fission products, radio nucleotides etc.