Environmental Pollution

Environmental pollution includes two terms, namely, environment and pollution. In

simple words, environment means all what does exist, our surroundings and that affects and
influences the survival, growth, and development of organisms.

In other words, environment means aggregate of surrounding things. Pollution means

the presence of dangerous unnatural ingredients causing imbalance in the ecosystem and
health hazards to human beings and animals.

Thus, pollution can be any unnatural ingredients which damage the ecosystem and
destroy the delicate balance in the ecosystem. Such unnatural ingredients may be gases
(causing air pollution), solids/liquids (causing water, food and land pollution) or sound
(causing sound pollution). All of them cause imbalance in ecosystem directly or indirectly
and have potentiality to cause health hazards to human beings and animals. Hence, pollution
has become a matter of great concern and consideration.

What is environmental pollution?

The environmental pollution can be defined as the introduction of different harmful

pollutants into environment that makes the environment unhealthy to live in. In an elementary
understanding, environmental pollution is a situation when the natural environment is unable
to process the changes that are being brought about by human activities. In other words,
environmental pollution is a situation when the harmful effects are due to the changes being
brought about in the normal course of things by human activities.

Speaking in technical sense, the problem of environmental pollution basically arises

when the natural environment becomes unable to decompose the non-natural elements,
known in scientific lexicon as ‘anthropogenic pollutants. The negative effects of
environmental pollution are commonly evident in the form of unclean air and water, the two
essential elements for life to sustain. The most common pollutants causing environmental
pollution, or say, unhealthy environment are usually chemicals, garbage, and waste water.

Many developed countries have introduced certain laws to not only regulate various
types of pollution but also the laws to mitigate the adverse effects of pollution. Pollution
levels need to be controlled all the time if we want to keep our environment safe and healthy.
Without proper pollution control, environment soon becomes unhealthy.
 Then, question is how to protect environment from pollution? The answer is
preventing introduction of pollutants into environment is the best way to protect environment
from pollution.

There are basically three kinds of environmental pollution:

(i) Air Pollution:

The strongest air pollutants are nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide,
ozone, airborne particles and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

(ii) Water Pollution:

` The strongest water pollutants are insecticides, pollutants from livestock operations,
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), food processing waste and chemical waste.

(iii) Soil Pollution:

The strongest soil pollutants are hydrocarbons, solvents, and heavy metals.

Among all of the above, the most damaging pollutants are fossil fuels and have been
one of the most significant contributing factors to the global environmental pollution problem
of the time.

The evil effects of fossil fuels are that these cause air pollution and their presence in
products like plastics, solvents, lubricating oils, detergents, asphalt, and chemicals for
industrial use cause soil pollution. Not only that, they also cause water pollution.