POLLUTION AWARENESS AND ACTIVISM
Air pollution
One of the main types of pollution is air pollution. Air pollution consists of harmful chemicals in the air and atmosphere that can be detrimental to people, plants, and animals. These chemicals are known as pollutants and can be solid particles, liquids, or gases.
The majority of air pollutants are released into the air by the burning of fossil fuels in factories, cars, and other machines. Some of these pollutants are greenhouse gases, which trap heat within the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are the biggest cause of global warming. These gases, which include ozone, methane, water vapor, and many others, seal heat into the atmosphere, increasing Earth's temperature and resulting in climate change events. In addition to their role in global warming, greenhouse gases are also some of the largest contributors to air pollution. A few of these major pollutants include gases such as carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, methane from agriculture and coal plants, nitrous oxide from agriculture, factories, and automobiles, and hydrofluorocarbons from industrial plants.
water pollution
Another type of pollution is water pollution. This happens as chemicals poison bodies of water, leading the water to harm any humans or animals that use it as a resource. These chemicals can come from runoff from roads, farms, and lawns filled with pesticides, salts, and waste, as well as wastewater or industrial byproducts that are put back into rivers, lakes, and oceans without being treated or filtered first. When this happens, the water is difficult to purify and the pollutants can expand to contaminate other water sources.
In addition to pollution from chemicals, oceans are also subject to hazardous oil spills. There are thousands of oil spills just within the oceans around the United States, and they happen when oil is transported by water and something goes wrong. These spills can harm plants and animals in the water as well as anything living nearby. The US government does work to mitigate the effects of oil spills, but there are still many animals and plants harmed as a result (noaa.gov). However, despite these frequent oil spills, "consumers account for the vast majority of oil pollution in our seas" due to the oil that drips from motor vehicles and can be released in both urban and rural areas, ultimately washing into the ocean (nrdc.org). Be mindful of your consumption of oil throughout your daily life.
Plastic pollution is also a significant problem within the world's oceans. The majority of plastic that ends up in the ocean is not intentionally released there, and instead reaches water sources due to careless beachgoers, large corporations, factories, sewer overflows, runoff from streets, construction, and illegal waste disposal. These plastics break into small pieces after exposure to the sun, waves, wind, and air, and the microplastics are dangerous for plants and animals living in the ocean. Many animals eat pieces of plastic by mistake and ultimately starve to death as microplastics fill their stomachs. They can also experience cuts and infection from the plastics or get caught in plastic waste such as plastic nets or rings. Plastics also impact humans who eat seafood or drink water from these contaminated sources as they ingest the microplastics. A few ways to help this plastic problem are to recycle, use fewer plastic products, and put waste in a designated trash can or recycling bin rather than littering.
The oceans also absorb carbon pollution from the atmosphere-- "as much as a quarter of man-made carbon emissions" are absorbed in this way (unesco.org). Oceans act as "carbon sinks" and store extra carbon from the atmosphere. The speed and amount of carbon the ocean absorbs varies by year and can be influenced by excess carbon from volcanic eruptions, human emissions, and other environmental factors (oceanographicmagazine.com). As the ocean absorbs more carbon, it becomes more acidic, which can dissolve the shells of animals such as oysters and lobsters. Coral reefs, which play a very important role in oceanic ecosystems, can also be dissolved with an increase in acidity. The destruction of coral reefs would impact the entire ocean ecosystem, and the effects would extend to humans and the atmosphere. As an individual, you can work to limit your own production of oil in order to help solve this problem (native.eco).
The agricultural industry is "the leading cause" of water pollution, acting as "the biggest consumer of global freshwater resources" in the world (unesco.org). Their contributions are largely a result of runoff from farms that ends up in water systems when washed away by rain. The runoff contains animal waste as well as chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides, which are detrimental to underwater ecosystems and wildlife. Another significant cause of water pollution comes from sewage and wastewater. Pollution from wastewater includes runoff from roads that contains salts, oil, and chemicals in addition to pollutants from both sewage treatments and untreated wastewater. These harmful substances are all sent back into water sources to impact the living things that surround them.