EHS 212- Pollution Control

Often things or items or media (water, food, soil, Air) are found in their natural, pure and pristine forms as expected in both quality and quantity. When an undesirable substance which normally is not an aspect of that originalitem/mediais found in such a noticeable concentration as to affect the value of such item/media, pollution has taken place. The phenomena of pollution occur in our environment every day as a result of our daily endeavours/activities either deliberately or by share coincidence. Pollution also occurs by means of natural events such as bush fires, wind storms, climate change etc. At a micro level we pollute the water we reserved for drinking even at home by pouring some ink or paint or saw dust into the reservoir thereby making it noticeably changed or polluted and unattractive for drinking. At larger level a stream can be polluted by emptying large human excreta into it. 3.2 Definitions ofPollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment thatcauses adverse change. The Wikipedia encyclopaedia define Pollution as ‗‘defiling or making impure, especially contamination by noxious substances‘‘ another definition given is ‗‘contamination of the environment as a result of human activities‘‘. The free dictionary by Farlex, also defined pollution as ‗‘the presence of substances and conditions that adversely affect the health and well-being of people within a community‘‘. Pollution is ‗‘ the act or process of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of soil, water, or the atmosphere by the discharge of harmful substances. (The free dictionary by Farlex). In all the above shades of definitions the common denominator is that in any act of pollution, something else not being an original component of the item has been introduced to cause a significant departure from its natural acceptable form. Technically speaking therefore, for pollution to have taken place the pollutants (contaminants) must be in such a quantity or volume to cause adverse change (colour, odour, organic content, temperature, taste, etc.) to the environmental item. It also holds therefore that the mere drop of an ink in a dam of water may not necessarily translate to pollution or a presence of 0.001 count of E.coli in a litre of water making it polluted water.