Solutions To Air Pollution

Imagine waking up in a small country town named Port Wentworth, off the coast of the Savannah River, and you can barely breathe because something is wrong in the air. You soon figure out what you and your children are breathing in is ammonia. Five minutes away from your home is a saw mill plant, which disburses hundreds of toxins into the air supply. This is not the ideal living situation, and in other places in America, the toll is greater. One of the biggest types of pollution America faces is pollution of the air. Millions of Americans live in cities where they have to inhale harmful chemicals doing damage to their bodies and they do not even realize it. There are recent innovations to help combat this problem and although it has gotten

It was not a severe problem as it is now, but back in the earlier days, coal was used mostly for energy purposes and there were no regulations for quality air. Enviropedia.org (not the same as Wikipedia) mentions the start of the UK’s air pollution coming from mainly burning coal. The Industrial Revolution’s primary source of energy came from coal and was used to power factories and homes. As learned in class, coal can release dirty particles into the air supply, which is why it is not used as often.

There have been countless occurrences of disasters due to air pollution, especially in America. Not too long ago in Donora, Pennsylvania in October 1948, there was a smog “invasion” to the city causing 20 deaths and infecting thousands more. Smog is defined as “fog or haze combined with smoke and other atmospheric pollutants.” The contributor to this disaster was the city’s zinc and steel mill, which blew out constant toxic smoke.

- Figure 1. Shows the fog in the streets Donora, Pennsylvania dealt with during the Smog of 1948. (Washington Post,