Cause and effect of pollution on the environment

Introduction

Pollution is the induction of harmful material or by-products discharged into the earth's environment. Pollution is one of the foremost problems in America and the world today. Pollution damages the environment and human health. Pollution has caused a multitude of problems ranging from healthcare issues like lung cancer to the current problem of the green house effect. Pollution is everywhere and humankind persists on living with this problem. What rational is behind this faulty persistence?

Cause and effect of pollution on the environment

Automobiles are unquestionably the leading source of pollutants being emitted into the environment. Noise pollution being emitted by automobiles is substantial. (Markarewicz & Kokowski, 07). Another effect automobiles have on the environment is the heat it generates. The heat emitted is unpleasant to be around.

The worse pollutant being emitted from automobiles is the exhaust. The noxious vapors emitted are a by-product of the engines combustion. These noxious vapors can slowly decline lung health, which can cause lung cancer, and destroy the earth's atmosphere. (Weir, 202). The vapors are tremendously toxic to human health. Over a million Americans live in regions where the air quality is unsafe to breath. Automobiles emit most of the earth's pollutant particulates. Particulate pollution is known to cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. (Altose, 21). With this knowledge why would humankind continue to drive these environmental time bombs? Some would answer that automobiles are progress, but most drive for the convenience.

Another cause of pollutions is the waste produced by post-consumer markets. Americans throw away tons of recyclable waste every year that ends up in landfills. Even though projects are in place to prevent the amount of recyclable waste from going to landfills, millions of recyclable products still get dumped in them. (Fagiano, 92). These products do not bio degrade and can stay buried for hundreds of years. Americans continue to consume, throw away and consume more for the purpose of convenience. As products are used or get old, people throw it out instead of trying to recycle. When people buy products that are over packed they are basically buying trash. People should look for products they can use over again and are not over packed with non recyclable products like Styrofoam.

Another cause of pollution is dumping of toxic waste into the world's rivers, lakes and oceans. Although this is not common practice today it still happens. These types of occurrences are rare and may not be of concern in society, but this way of thinking can be dangerous. Each time toxic waste is dumped into waterways unspeakable consequences can happen. Human death and natural environmental destruction have transpired as a result of illegal dumping. Dumping toxic waste contaminates drinking water and the soil. (Thorson, 25). Toxic dumping causes whole communities to move to different places, not able to return for centuries. These toxins dumped by industries can be so concentrated that one barrel can destroy and entire waterways ecosystem. (Dodge, 27).

Industries not only dump toxins into the waterways, ...