Pollution Management
- Human activities, such as farming and industrial practices, urbanisation, development of transport, and energy production, are the major causes of pollution
- The amount of material released into the environment determines the impact
- There are three main stages leading to the impact of pollutants on the environment
- Stage 1: Human activity producing the pollutant
- Stage 2: Releasing of the pollutant into the environment
- Stage 3: The impact of the pollutant on ecosystems
The main stages leading to the impact of pollutants
- There are three strategies for managing the impacts of pollution (which relate to the stages of pollutant impact shown above):
- Changing human activity
- Regulating and reducing quantities of pollutants released at the point of emission
- Cleaning up the pollutants and restoring the ecosystem after pollution has occurred
- Modern technology can reduce the impact of pollution by managing these three stages of pollutant impacts, for example:
- Stage 1 could be managed by introducing electric and hybrid cars that use less fossil fuel
- Stage 2 could be managed by fitting catalytic converters to car exhaust systems or adding scrubbers to industrial chimneys to remove toxic chemicals and allow for their reuse
- Stage 3 could be managed by using synthetic membranes to capture chemical spills (e.g. mats designed to capture and hold hydrocarbons)
The main strategies for managing the impacts of pollution
