The Pros And Cons Of Environmental Pollution

Several efforts have been made over recent years to maintain a safe and clean environment. However, environmental pollution is getting worst and poses a major threat to the Earth. Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the environment which causes adverse effects on human health as well as the environment (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2010). Environmental pollution is causing grave and irreparable damage to the Earth in different forms. There are four known pollution which is in the form of air, water, land, and noise (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

The first type of pollution is air pollution. According to United States Environmental Protection Agency (as cited in Vallero, 2008, p. 3), air pollution is the presence of

According to Sharma (2005), water pollution is alteration in physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water which may cause harmful effects on human and aquatic biota. Industrial waste, oil leakage and chemical and pesticides are some of the sources of water pollution. Industries produce a large amount of waste that contains toxic chemicals. Most of the industries do not have proper waste management system and the waste goes into drain and later into sea. It leads to the increasing of temperature and mineral amounts in water. An oil leakage is the unintentional release of liquid petroleum hydrocarbon. It is a huge concern if heavy oil spill occur as oil is denser than water and cause varying damage to aquatic organisms. The depletion of oxygen in water could be fatal to aquatic organisms since oxygen is an important limiting factor to them. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used in farming for plant growth. However, the chemicals that mixed up with rain water flows into the rivers or seas and indirectly result in water contaminated. Water pollution cause great impact on public health because pathogenic organisms such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites spread through polluted water. When people consume polluted water, these pathogenic organisms can move into the body and causes diseases. For example, cholera which is resulted by the bacterium, Vibrio cholerae is perhaps the most devastating of the waterborne bacterial diseases (Abel,