Pollution Control
All the Main Forms of Pollution Control
Pollution control is the term used to label how pollutants are reduced or eliminated from being introduced into the ecosystem. Many governments have stepped in to limit these toxins from being expelled by those industries who produce them into areas that impact both nature and human health. The common forms of pollution control are focused on air, water, and land preservation. Many of the things targeted to be prevented from being introduced into the environment are chemical or physical in nature.
Air pollution control targets both particles in the emissions and unwanted gases that might be released. Particles are targeted with physical methods. These include settling chambers (long wide pipes that slow gases being released down to the point that particles drift to the bottom of the pipe where they can be collected and removed) and cyclone collectors (using centrifugal forces to cause the particles to collect on the sides of the chamber and slide down it). Unwanted gases can be dealt with in a lot of different ways. Typically these gases are acidic in nature, so one effective way to remove them is to use moist pH reactive chemicals as scrubbers. Common ones are lime, magnesium oxide, and sodium hydroxide. Adsorption is another method, one that uses activate charcoal to draw the gases away from the air. Both scrubbers and active charcoal liners must be removed and cleaned or replaced regularly to remain effective.
Water pollution control can be either physical, chemical, or biological. Physical pollution control can be handled with a settling pool or by using a filter. Chemical pollution control is typically handled through the use of alum and lime which combined with settling or a filter removes pollution from the water. For Biological pollution control aerobic bacteria and anaerobic bacteria are used to convert harmful chemicals into harmless ones.
Land pollution control and solid pollution is more difficult to deal with, as it requires a combination approach that is still not full embraced. Garbage, sewage, and other forms of waste can either be buried in landfills, composted/recycled, or incinerated. Clearly there are no really ways to control this but by using less and reusing more. While governments can mandate air and water quality, the reduction of solid matter is an individual choice.
One final word, as related to land pollution control is how chemicals spilled into the soil has impacted the ecology. The major cause of this problem is human carelessness, not anything else. The major preventive is education – learning to not spill chemicals onto the ground, be it detergents, oil, or other solutions. Reductions in the amount of chemicals used by business and homes to safe amounts and returning unused chemicals to the proper collection sites for disposal or recycling can prevent many of the future costs to clean up toxic ground that currently exists at factories, farms and military locations. With the cost to clean up existing pollution of the soil reaching seven hundred billion dollars, prevention is the best “land pollution control” we have.