Pollution and Indoor Air Circulation

The term pollution means the discharge of a toxic or contaminating substance that is likely to have an adverse effect on the natural environment or life. Pollution is a very serious problem, making life more difficult for not just humans, but even plants and animals. There are many types of pollution such as air pollution, water pollution, and soil contamination. First let’s begin by talking about air pollution and how it affects us. Air is 99.9% nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor and insert gases. Air pollution occurs when gases, dust particles, or smoke are introduced into the atmosphere that causes harm to all living organisms. Air pollution can be caused by both human and natural actions. Natural occurrences are forest fire, volcanic eruptions, and radiation. Human activities that result in air pollution include: emissions from manufacturing industries, burning fossil fuels from any transportation vehicles. Air pollution can affect our health in many ways with both short-term and long-term effects. Some people are much more sensitive to pollutants than others. Young children and elders often suffer more from the effects of air pollution. Examples of short-term effects include irritation to the eyes, nose and throat. Short-term air pollution can aggravate the medical conditions of people with asthma. Long-term effects can include chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and even damage to the brain.
On the other hand, let’s move on to water pollution. This pollution occurs when particles, chemicals, or substances that make water contaminated are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without enough treatment to get rid of harmful compounds. Water is a necessity and essential of life. People, animals, and crops rely on clean water. Contaminated water will not only kill animals, but will eventually lead to more death of human from the poisoned seafood.
The last pollution I will be talking about is ground pollution. This pollution occurs when waste is not disposed properly, or can occur when people throw chemicals which caused soil contamination. The toxic materials that pollute the soil can get into the human body directly by coming into contact with the skin, eating fruits and vegetables that have been grown in polluted soil, and breathing in polluted dust of particles. In order to stop this pollution, the first main thing that we should all do is to stop littering. Even a simple plastic bag can be extremely harmful to marine animals. We must stop this or else many innocent animals will die due to our careless mistakes.
We often hear the phrase “I’ll go out for some fresh air.” But how many of us realize that this has become irrelevant in today’s world, because the quality of air in our cities is really bad. Even though this might be irrelevant, but I still recommend people to go out more because indoor pollution is actually worse than outdoor pollution. According to Environmental Protection Agency, indoor environment is 2-5 times more toxic than outdoor environment. Indoor air circulation is more restricted compared to outdoor. This is also why smoking and second hand smoke is very deadly at home.
Most of the pollution we have right now is due to our life style. We are so influenced by technology that cars, phones, computers is now a necessity of our life. Pollution is like the price we are paying if we still want to continue with this modern living style. There is no way to stop pollution, but we can at least try to minimize it by throwing away your trash properly, stop littering, use energy saving appliances, and try not to drive your car so often. Here’s a quote from David Orr, “When we heal the Earth, we heal ourselves.” If you really value your life, maybe you should start thinking about preventing pollution.