Pollution

The increased occurrence of extraneous, impure and over-abundant substances presents a threat not only to the stability of the Earth and its communities but also to its very existence, given the need for balance. Key issues outlined here include:

1. a balanced system
2. atmospheric pollution
3. water pollution
4. chemical and industrial pollution
5. the Basel Convention
6. PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls)
7. noise pollution

There is also a list of useful sites and sources on pollution.

The Biosystem

In an undisturbed ecosystem, all substances are processed through an intricate network of biogeochemical cycles, such as the nitrogen and carbon cycles: substances are taken up by plants, move through the food chain to larger and more complex organisms, and when the latter die, are decomposed (broken down) into simpler forms to be used again when they are taken up by plants. Biodegradable substances are those that can be broken down by the environment's biological systems. Pollution occurs when the environment becomes overloaded beyond the capacity of these normal processing systems. This happens:

• when there is an excess of normally helpful substances, such as the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus
• when there is an excess of substances that are harmless – and perhaps even necessary in tiny amounts – but toxic in concentration; copper, for example, is necessary in small amounts for healthy plant growth, but becomes a pollutant if it occurs in greater quantities
• when synthetic compounds that are poisonous in the environment, often even in trace amounts, such as DDT, dioxin, PCBs and organochlorines get into the ecosystem
• when substances that, in any amount, are not biodegradable, such as plastics and highly persistent chemicals like DDT and other organochlorines get into the ecosystem

Dealing with pollution

Pollution levels have increased so much, in amount and toxicity, that an original 'dilution is the solution to pollution' approach is no longer acceptable – if it ever was. Rather, informed efforts now concentrate on source reduction, that is: stop it at source!

Atmospheric pollution

Major sources of air pollution are:

• Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons from vehicle emissions: these combine to form photochemical smog
• Carbon monoxide from vehicle emissions restricts oxygen uptake and adversely affects human and animal health
• Carbon dioxide produced during the burning of coal exacerbates global warming
• CFCs and aerosols, refrigeration, airconditioning and foam-blowing industries destroy the ozone layer
• methane from feedlots and rubbish dumps increases global warming

According to the United Nations Human Development Report, the cost to humans alone of pollution of the world's atmosphere is enormous. The typical number of deaths annually caused by atmospheric pollution is two million; those caused by pollution from wood-smoke, used for cooking and heating is 650,000. Mexico city is the World's most polluted city: there are 6,400 deaths a year there and a staggering 175,000 in China. The number of premature deaths in developing countries caused by atmospheric pollution is as high as 70%. An estimated US$4bn worth of damage by chronic bronchitis due to pollution is reported in developing countries. Atmospheric pollution costs a heavily industrialized country like Germany US$4.7bn annually.

The sector which appears to be worst hit by air pollution is agriculture, with an estimated annual cost of over US$10bn.

Water pollution

About 80% of pollution to the marine environment comes from land-based sources, such as 'non-point source' (runoff) pollution. This includes many small sources (septic tanks, cars, trucks and boats), and larger ones (such as farms, ranches and forest areas). Millions of automobile engines make daily, one-drop-at-a-time 'oil spills' onto roads and parking spaces, which add significantly to runoff pollution and find their way into the oceans. Some water pollution actually starts as air pollution, which settles into waterways and oceans.

Even dirt can be a pollutant. Top soil or silt from fields or construction sites can run off into waterways, harming fish and wildlife and their habitats. More than 10 beaches a day on average are closed because of runoff pollution in the US and more than a third of the shellfish growing waters of the United States are adversely affected by coastal pollution. There are 2 billion cases of diarrhoea caused by polluted water worldwide each year and an amazing five million deaths from diarrhoea in developing countries every year. Sweden now has 20,000 'acified' lakes and Canada 48,000.

Sewage contains pathogens which cause typhoid, cholera and gastroenteritis if there is inadequate sanitation. Nutrients in sewage cause eutrophication. Fertilizers used in agriculture cause eutrophication. Silt build up in freshwater ecosystems, caused by inappropriate agriculture, smothers aquatic organisms. Pesticides used in agriculture and by the health services are toxic and interfere with breeding of mammals and birds. Toxic metals which are produced by industry are health and life threatening. Sewage released into marine systems due to inadequate sanitation will cause the diseases mentioned above. Fertilizers used in agriculture cause eutrophication. Oil spills from tankers smother marine plants and animals. Plastics in the sea causes the death of marine animals. Pesticides used in agriculture and by the health services also causes the death of sea life. For example, in the US, 41% of all insecticides are used on corn. Fully 80% of these are used to treat a pest that could be controlled simply by rotating the corn for one year with any other crop.

Chemical and industrial pollution

Americans use approximately 2.2 bn lbs of pesticides every year. Research shows that target pests will eventually develop resistance to these pesticides anyway. Some 73 different kinds of pesticides have been found in groundwater in some areas, which is potential drinking water. More than 100 active pesticide ingredients are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, and gene mutation. A growing list of pesticides have the potential to disrupt the immune and endocrine systems and of having long term impacts on the offspring of exposed humans and animals.

Each year factories in the United States output 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the air, land, and water. That compounds the over one-half billion tons of solid hazardous wastes. In 1987, the US released 1.2 million tons of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, 670,000 tons into the soil, and 250,000 tons into the water.

The Basel Convention

The Basel Convention is a global treaty addressing the generation and transboundary movement of hazardous waste; in theory it provides a powerful tool to seriously arrest polluting industries by incentivizing industries to employ clean production methods so that toxic waste is not generated in the first place. The best way to deal with waste is to reduce it: the wisest and most sustainable trend – economically as well as ecologically – is to transform polluting industries into clean production industries: prevent, don't control.

The Basel Action Network (BAN) is an international network of activists working to support the thrust of the Convention which sought to stop economically motivated toxic waste export and dumping – particularly hazardous waste exports from rich industrialized countries (OECD member states) and even for recycling to poorer, less-industrialized countries: a few industrialized countries (United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan) have obstructed the adoption of the Basel Ban.

PCBs

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a group of synthetic oil-like chemicals of the organochlorine family. Until their toxic nature was recognized and their use was banned in the 1970s, they were widely used as insulation in electrical equipment, particularly transformers. Reputable chemists have since concluded that "it was probably a 'mistake' ever to make or use PCBs". They are serious poisons which have been shown to cause damage to the reproductive, neurological and immune systems of wildlife and humans and are known to cause cancer. Specifically, because PCBs in the body mimic estrogen, women of child-bearing age and their infants are particularly susceptible to a variety of development and reproductive disorders.

A National Academy of Sciences committee has stated that "PCBs pose the largest potential carcinogenic risk of any environmental contaminant for which measurements exist." There are numerous known contaminated sites around the United States. Among the most dangerous of these, and of particular concern to residents of the Hudson Valley, are the forty 'hot spots' in the Hudson River resulting from the dumping and leakage from General Electric plants at Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. There are PCBs in Hudson River water, biota, and sediment from Hudson Falls to New York City; when they were used, General Electric legally dumped some 1.5 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River, and unknowingly saturated the bedrock beneath both sites with at least that much again. Pure PCBs are oozing out of the bedrock to this day, constantly recontaminating the river. Insoluble in water, PCBs are not readily excreted and remain, in ever-increasing concentrations, lodged in the fatty body tissues of fish as they grow. Almost all of the river-dwelling fish are migratory, and there is an ever-increasing risk that, while remaining dangerous, it will be dispersed gradually, carried downstream, and thus become irrecoverable: PCBs don«t disappear, they just go somewhere else. Every day, and especially after heavy rain, PCBs move downstream into the ecosystem of the tidal Hudson, affecting the region«s fish, wildlife, and people. These PCBs enter the ocean and migrate throughout the world. Hudson River PCBs have been found in human and animal fat from the Arctic Circle.

Noise pollution

Noise is unwanted sound. The word is perhaps derived from the Latin, "nausea": indeed the effect of noise is as that of a sickness. Although not usually given so high a profile as other forms of pollution, noise is among the most pervasive pollutants today… road traffic, planes, car radios, jet skis, jackhammers, motorbikes, cellular phones, construction equipment, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and the ever-present background mush from TVs, elevator-muzak, jingles, film soundtracks adding nothing to the content and the "tsk tsk tsk" of personal stereos – as bad as second-hand smoke.

Noise negatively affects human health and well-being. Deleterious results of noise pollution include hearing loss, stress, high blood pressure, sleep loss, distraction and lost productivity, and a general reduction in the quality of life and opportunities for peace, tranquillity and an appreciation of naural noise. A recent report in the UK suggests a massive increase in the number of complaints about noise, a jump in the number of noise-related suicides and an alarming decrease in areas of the country which are naturally quiet

People, businesses, and organizations have no rights to broadcast noise as they please; the effects of their noise are not limited to their immediate surroundings. Rather, they have an obligation not to impose sound on others. At best, such abuse is a form of bullying; at worst it is life-threatening and significantly downgrades quality of life.

Although our threshold for pain is at about 120 – 140 dB SPL, sound begins to damage our hearing when it is above 85 dB SPL for an eight hour period and some of the hearing loss will be permanent. Research shows that accumulative exposure to loud sounds, not aging, is the major cause of hearing loss. Hearing loss cannot usually or easily be repaired by medicine, surgery or hearing aids. With 'normal' hearing, one can hear frequencies from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz and intensities from 0 dB to 140 dB. This corresponds to a power ratio equal to 100,000,000,000,000.

A little-known side effect of the huge increase in the number of mobile phones is their use of the mineral coltan. Aside from the environmental damage caused by mining coltan and the slaughter of large numbers of gorillas and elephants, the war in central Africa which has so far killed 2.5 million people, displaced almost as many and deprived 16 million of food is decidedly fueled by electronics manufacturers' greed for coltan.

Light pollution

A recent atlas published by US and Italian scientists shows just how invasive and damaging light pollution has become. Nearly two thirds of the Earth's population experiences unwanted light. Indeed in many urban areas it never gets dark. Even small amounts of extraneous light produce massive deleterious effects – on birds, which fly into buildings; on some tree frogs, whose mating patterns are disrupted; on some hatchling turtles, which become confused; and on all life forms when light at night disrupts critical hormone functioning. It is estimated that light pollution – as well as wasting energy – has been growing at 10% per year since the 1960s.

Sources on Pollution

The Web Directory pages have useful links to other sites on pollution. Environmental Defense has a ranking tool for a variety of pollution metrics. The Encyclopedia Brittanica has a good overview of the issues, causes and impacts of many forms of pollution and the World Revolution pages have some alarming, relevant facts and suggestions. On noise pollution look at: NPC, the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, the Right to Quiet Society and the Nature Sounds Society. The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) has excellent resources on its own site and many useful links to others working in the field of acoustic ecology.