POLLUTION

                                              INTRODUCTION

"Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the environment that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or that damage the environment."
(Ref. 1)

And here is another really good one:

“Any use of natural resources at a rate higher than nature's capacity to restore itself can result inpollution of air, water, and land.” (Ref. 2)

We can expand the second definition and conclude that pollution takes place because:

• we process, consume and throw away a high volume of material resources at a very high rate, and
• the nature's own rate of re-absorbing these resources back into its structure and effectively neutralizing them is much slower than our rates of production / consumption.

So it is not just the concepts of production & consumption but excessive production & consumption which are the major contributors to man-caused pollution.

To add to that, it is not only excessive production but also inefficient & dirty methods of productionwhich become sources of environmental pollution.

And it is not only excessive consumption but also careless & thoughtless disposal of post-consumption waste resources which could otherwise be recycled.

Our analysis of causes of pollution focuses on:

• fundamental drivers of pollution,
• primary & secondary causes of pollution, and
• sources of pollution.

Here is its schematic presentation:

We start the discussion with the fundamental drivers of pollution.

 Primary and Secondary Causes of Pollution

Taking a step down from the fundamental drivers, we can now approach production &consumption as primary & secondary causes of pollution.

Causes of Pollution

We refer to PRODUCTION as the primarycause of pollution because the whole cycle of extracting and processing natural resources and then selling processed goods starts from this point. And it obviously comes beforeconsumption.

The diagram to the left is a basic presentation of major sectors which comprise numerous polluting sub-sectors.

The production side of the diagram includesmanufacturing industries, power generation,road, rail & air transport and agriculture & timber production. In reality, it can be of course broken down into many other industries / sub-industries.

So how does the production side contribute to global pollution?

Let's consider the following example.

A car is a necessity for many people who use it in their everyday lives. In order to produce cars, a car manufacturer needs to:

• Purchase raw materials such as metal, rubber, plastic, wood, paint etc.

Raw materials are extracted from earth in large amounts often damaging the natural system of the area from which they were extracted, as well as surrounding areas, ex. rainforests.

• Purchase energy / electricity which is usually generated from petroleum resources.

Petroleum-based energy generation causes the emission of gases into the atmosphere and often contaminates water and land of the surrounding areas.

• Use this energy to process raw materials into cars.

Cars are manufactured leaving behind an environmentally destructive footprint as described above.

That is a very simplified explanation of how manufacturing contributes to environmental pollution.

We'll now have a look at consumption.

We refer to CONSUMPTION as the secondary cause of pollution because this stage comes after, and depends on, production.

The consumption side of the diagram includes individual consumers as well as residential,commercial & social sectors which utilize the goods offered by the production side.

And how does the consumption side contribute to global pollution?

Let's continue with the example of the car. Each car owner needs to:

Causes of Pollution:
Clean Energy Alongside Car Pollution
Photo: Kevin Dooley

• Fill it with gas / petrol every week to operate it.

The burning of petrol causes the emission of dirty gasesstraight into the atmosphere. Such air pollution then travels globally affecting many different parts of the planet.

• Wash it regularly with detergents - either manually or in a car wash.

Car detergents are often made of harmful chemicals which, when used, are released directly into the environment, ex. via waste water.

• Change tires on a regular basis.

A significant percentage of each tire's composite material comes from petroleum derivatives and other chemicals. Old tires often end up unrecycled and thrown into landfills releasing harmful chemicals onto surrounding land areas and into the air and thus contributing to air & land pollution.

Going back to the production side, the more often tires need to be changed, the more natural resources will need to be allocated yet again for their production and the more pollution will be released into the environment.

• Owners of new cars are exposed to "in-car" pollution which is almost always ignored by the public.

In-car pollution is caused by the offgassing of chemicals from freshly-produced car components. In this case, the health of new car owners suffers alongside the health of the wider environment.

That is another simplified explanation of how consumption becomes a significant cause of pollution.

Pollution Agents

We refer to pollution agents as the chemicals which are released into the environment as part of the waste products generated from production and consumption activities.

In other words, pollution agents are the "operators" which make pollution "happen".

They are also known as environmental pollutants, air pollutants and so on. Some of them are carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides.