lOMoARcPSD|8861808

UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA

B.COM 2ND SEM(HONS)

EXAMINATION-2021

PROJECT REPORT
ON

IMPACT OF POLLUTION ON ENVIROMENT

SUBMITTED BY
NAME : AYUSH BURNWAL
COLLEGE ROLL NO. : 20101-1/230
C.U. ROLL NO. : 201016210750
REG NO. : 016-1111-1211-20

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ACKNOWLEDMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of

gratitude to my teacher Prof. DR. INDRANIL
GHOSH who gave me the golden opportunity to do
this wonderful project on the topic IMPACT OF
POLLUTION ON ENVIROMENT, which also
helped me in doing a lot of Research and I came to
know about so many new thingsI am really thankful
to them.
Secondly I would also like to thank my parents and
friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project
within the limited time frame.

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CONTENT
SR. NO TOPIC PAGE NO

01 INTRODUCTION 04

02 FUELWOOD AND BIOMASS 05

03 AIR POLLUTION RELATED HEALTH HAZARDS 07

04 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 09

05 BIBLOGRAPHY 10

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INTRODUCTION
Air pollution is the introduction of particulates, biological molecules, or other
harmful materials into the Earth's atmosphere, possibly causing disease, death to
humans, damage to other living organisms such as food crops, or the natural or
built environment. Air pollution may come
from anthropogenic or natural sources.
The atmosphere is a complex natural gaseous system that is essential to support
life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has been
recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth's ecosystems.
Indoor air pollution and urban air quality are listed as two of the world's worst
toxic pollution problems in the 2008 Blacksmith Institute World's Worst Polluted
Places report. According to the 2014 WHO report, air pollution in 2012 caused the
deaths of around 7 million people worldwide.
Air pollution in India is quite a serious issue with the major sources being
fuelwood and biomass burning, fuel adulteration, vehicle emission and traffic
congestion. In autumn and winter months, large scale crop residue burning in
agriculture fields - a low cost alternative to mechanical tilling - is a major source of
smoke, smog and particulate pollution. India has a low per capita emissions of
greenhouse gases but the country as a whole is the third largest after China and the
United States. A 2013 study on non-smokers has found that Indians have 30%
lower lung function compared to Europeans.
The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act was passed in 1981 to regulate
air pollution and there have been some measurable improvements. However, the
2013Environmental Performance Index ranked India 155 out of 178 countries.

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Fuel wood and biomass

burning Cooking fuel in rural India is prepared from a
wet mix of dried grass, fuelwood pieces, hay,
leaves and mostly cow/livestock dung. This mix
is patted down into disc-shaped cakes, dried, and
then used as fuel in stoves. When it burns, it
produces smoke and numerous indoor air
pollutants at concentrations 5 time higher than
coal.

A rural stove using biomass cakes, fuelwood and

trash as cooking fuel. Surveys suggest over 100
million households in India use such stoves
(chullahs) every day, 2-3 times a day. Clean
burning fuels and electricity are unavailable in
rural parts and small towns of India because of
poor rural highways and limited energy
generation infrastructure

Fuel wood and biomass burning is the primary reason for near-permanent haze and
smoke observed above rural and urban India, and in satellite pictures of the
country. Fuel wood and biomass cakes are used for cooking and general heating
needs. These are burnt in cook stoves known as chullah or chulha piece in some
parts of India. These cook stoves are present in over 100 million Indian
households, and are used two to three times a day, daily. As of 2009, majority of
Indians still use traditional fuels such as dried cow dung, agricultural waste, and
firewood as cooking fuel.
This form of fuel is inefficient source of energy, its burning releases high levels of
smoke, PM10 particulate matter, NO2, SO2, PAHs, polyaromatics, formaldehyde,
carbon monoxide and other air pollutants. Some reports, including one by the
World Health Organization, claim 300,000 to 400,000 people die of indoor air
pollution and carbon monoxide poisoning in India because of biomass burning and
use of chullahs. The air pollution is also the main cause of the Asian brown cloud
which is delaying the start of the monsoon. Burning of biomass and firewood will
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not stop, unless electricity or clean burning fuel and combustion technologies
become reliably available and widely adopted in rural and urban India.
India is the world's largest consumer of fuel wood, agricultural waste and biomass
for energy purposes. From the most recent available nationwide study, India used
148.7 million tonnes coal replacement worth of fuel wood and biomass annually
for domestic energy use. India's national average annual per capita consumption of
fuel wood, agri wate and biomass cakes was 206 kilogram coal equivalent.
In 2010 terms, with India's population increased to about 1.2 billion, the country
burns over 200 million tonnes of coal replacement worth of fuel wood and biomass
every year to meet its energy need for cooking and other domestic use. The study
found that the households consumed around 95 million tones of fuel wood,
onethird of which was logs and the rest was twigs. Twigs were mostly consumed
in the villages, and logs were more popular in cities of India.
The overall contribution of fuel wood, including sawdust and wood waste, was
about 46% of the total, the rest being agri waste and biomass dung cakes.
Traditional fuel (fuel wood, crop residue and dung cake) dominates domestic
energy use in rural India and accounts for about 90% of the total. In urban areas,
this traditional fuel constitutes about 24% of the total.

Air Pollution Related Health Hazards

The concentration of air pollutants in different Indian cities have been measured by
various institutions and organizations. However, the effect of these pollutantson
public health is hardly studied by any organisation. Cropper et. al. (1997) stated
airpollution related health data is very scanty and theproper investigation on public
health is almostlacking. Looking at this shortcoming, the presentstudy attempts to
find the effect of air pollution onthe public health due to high emission levels.
Thoughthe survey covers a limited time of two years, viz.

2012 and 2013, but it leaves a broad overview on the hazardous effect of air
pollution on the public health in the Kolkata Municipality Corporations (KMC).It
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is evident that air pollution does cause many functional disorders in the organs of
human body. Mainly, it hampers the respiratory and lung function by several
magnitudes of the human body. Before weget into the detail of the above
mentioned objectives ,the following list provides some basic information on the
major functional disorder of the human body caused by the air pollution.

Respiratory Disorder
Respiratory disorders are more common diseases which takes place on
publichealtheasily due to high concentration of air pollutants.Sinusitis, running or
stuffy nose, sneezing, sorethroat, common cold and fever considered as
upperrespiratory disorders and dry cough, cough withphlegm (wet cough), chest
discomfort and pain,shortness of breath and wheezing breath as lowerrespiratory
disorders. Other than these, manydifferent respiratory diseases viz. prevalence
ofasthma, prevalence of other symptoms like headache,eye irritation, skin irritation
or dryness on publichealth have also been noticed due to high emission ofair
pollutants like SO heavy metals namelyarsenic, nickel, vanadium, on those who
areoccupationally exposed in highly air polluted placesin the city (WHO, 2010).
Cardiovascular Disorders
Cardiovascular disorderstake place on human health through various
airpollutantagents like CO, heavy metals i.e. mercury,nickel, arsenic and mice.
Different CVD problemsnamely increase prevalence of hypertension,activation of
blood platelets (giant platelet activation leukocyte cardiovascular risk, oxidized
low density lipoprotein in blood, anti-cardio-lipin antibodies in blood serum may
also increase the risk in CVD system in human body).
Nervous Disorder
Many air pollution does directly affect the human nervous system. Mainly
theairpollution agents like heavy metals i.e. lead, mercury,arsenic and dioxins may
increase the depression levelamong occupational exposed people in high
airpolluted zones. These also do effects on bloodneurotransmitter levels in several
forms.

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Urinary Disorder
Urinary System disorder sometimes may takes place on human body due
tohighemissions of pollutants like heavy metals.

Digestive Disorder

-Digestive Power sometimes affected by air pollution agents. Mainly dioxins

doeseffect on digestive system of human health.
Lung Diseases and Lung Cancer
Excess AgNOR inbuccal epithelial cells indicates increase inribosomebiosynthesis
which is responsible factor for up-regulation of akt signal transduction. This may
be thecauses of metaplasia, dysplasia and finally increasethe cancer risk in lungs of
human body and also otherlung diseases.

Malfunctioning of Cellular System and DNA Function

Malfunctioning of cellular function andDNA function can also hampered due

tohighemission level of air pollution. Mostly heavy metal smainly lead may affects
the malfunctioning ofcellular system as well as on DNA function in humanbody.
Pregnancy Problem
Damage of fetus duringpregnancy can also recorded on women due to
longtimeexposure of high air polluted zones. Heavymetals like lead also effects on
the growth of fetusdue to emission of air pollution.

CONCLUSION
AND
RECOMMENDATION

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The present study in the light of the growing pollution in the Kolkata city reveals
some interesting facts. Though few existing reports and studies have given an
insight to the level of air pollution, but the present study, based on the cross
sectional data revels that the air pollution level during peak and non-peak hours of
the day and night time is the highest during the winter season that the summer
season. As seen, the total traffic volume is always higher in southern parts of the
city that the northern parts, mainly the Behala-Chowrasta, considered as one of the
highest traffic congested place in the city. Exposure to high air pollution level does
effect on human health which is the key finding of present paper during the year
2012-2013. From our findings seven major health disorders have been noticed on
public health due to high air pollution level in the city during this period. The year
2013 shows higher airborne diseases that includes primarily the higher respiratory
disorders, cardio-vascular diseases and lung diseases over the year 2012. However,
in cases of lower respiratory disorder, nervous disorder another related diseases
shows a decline in the year2013 over the same period last year

BIBLOGRAPHY
Web sites : www.google.com

References:

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1. Dasgupta, Abhijit (January 7, 2009). "Most-polluted

Kolkata kills 2.5 times more than Delhi; Vadodara safest".
India Today.
2. Bhaumik, Subir (May 3, 2007). "Air pollution suffocates
Calcutta". BBC News Online.
3. Mohan, Vishwa (October 19, 2013). "Delhi, Kolkata have
worst air quality in India: Report". Times of India.
4. Basu, Jayanta (October 21, 2013). "Choke on fumes, chafe
at neglect". The Telegraph.
5. Bhaumik, Subir (August 29, 2003). "Warning over
Calcutta water quality". BBC News Online.

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