Urban Pollution and Waste Management

Urban Pollution and Waste Management

Urban pollution and waste management is a major problem in both the first and third worlds. The increases of major air pollutants in the atmosphere are causing damage to our waters and land. The increase of garbage and waste in urban areas, such as cities, are beginning to look like huge landfills, acid rain is causing forests and buildings to deteriorate, and finally ozone, which is caused from primarily transportation, is slowly suffocating the populations it affects. My area of the problem was the acid rain problem and how we are trying to solve it.

The first thing I will discuss is major air pollutants. Transport is the major source of air pollution because of its heavy dependence upon the combustion of fossil fuels, either in vehicles or at power stations. The major air pollutants are carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, lead, and suspended particulate matter. The most serious environmental issue pertaining to urban areas is that of air quality. The principal sources of air pollution in urban areas are derived from the combustion of fossil fuels for domestic heating, for power generation, in motor vehicles, in industrial processes and in the disposal of solid wastes by incineration. These atmospheric pollutants affect human health directly through inhalation, and indirectly through such exposure routes as drinking water and food contamination. Most traditional air pollutants directly affect respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Certain groups have an even greater risk to the effects of air pollution; the elderly, the young, and those weakened by debilitating ailments such as poor nutrition, which primarily fa...

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...to these terms. Environmental organization called for a seventy-five percent reduction in ten years. The Sophia Protocol signed by twenty-three European countries, the U.S. and Canada in 1988, reflect compromise calling for a freeze of 1987 levels while postponing compliance until 1994, a U.S. demand. (UNEP)

Four additional protocols have been adopted contributing significance on strengthening the regime. The VOC protocol had three different national positions and calls for a fifteen percent reduction in VOC's. The protocol on Heavy Metals called for cut emissions from industrial sources, combustion and incineration. The protocol on persistent organic pollutants (Pops) focused on eleven pesticides, two industrial chemicals, and three by-products. Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication, and Ground Level Ozone set regulations on all four pollutants.