Information About Prevention & Control of Land & Soil Pollution
There is a sensitive balance between the environment and the ecosystems that are in that environment. Anything that upsets the balance can have catastrophic results that might last for many years. One major cause of problems in the environment is land and soil pollution. Preventing pollution in the first place is the best solution; however, if an area is already polluted, the damaged area has to be cleaned or restored so the land can once again be used by plants, insects and animals.
Other People Are Reading
-
Mining Pollution
-
Big mining operations, particularly strip mining, which clears the landscape, can create large problems when workers remove soil and leave huge piles of tailings or waste soil. This process causes pollution when acid used for leaching materials from ore seeps down through the soil or collects in ponds. Untreated, the pollution can remain for years and contaminate the entire area, but abandoned mining areas can be restored by cleaning up the toxic waste and replacing topsoil and lost vegetation.
Chemical Pollution
-
Chemicals such as pesticides or herbicides can get into the soil when they are overused or are washed into fields or neighboring yards. Pollution from these chemicals can often be prevented or minimized by following the manufacturer's application instructions. Other chemicals, including paint, grease, oil and gasoline, can also cause land and soil pollution. Gasoline can leak out of underground storage tanks and contaminate the soil. To prevent corrosion of underground storage tanks, a technique known as cathodic protection is used. The storage tank has a positive ionic structure called a cathode; metal anodes, the ionic negative structure, are attached to the tank so that they will corrode from the corrosive electrical charges in the soil, rather than the tank.
-
Illegal Dumping
-
Land pollution can be caused by the illegal dumping of harmful or toxic materials such as mercury, automobile parts that contain oil or grease or even wood that has been preserved by material like creosote or arsenic pentoxide. To prevent this type of pollution, these objects must be disposed of properly and not placed in a landfill or dumped illegally.
Other Prevention Methods
-
To prevent land and soil pollution, household chemicals like cleaners and motor oil need to be recycled at an approved location. To reduce the need for pesticides or herbicides, natural methods can be used. To repel snails or slugs, try spreading copper wire or sheets around plants; the metal will react with the mucus of the snail or slug and give it a light shock. Use predatory insects like praying mantis or ladybugs rather than chemical sprays.
History
-
Land and soil pollution is not a new problem. Since primitive times, humans have left waste or trash lying around. Ancient people tossed food and building and tool making supplies in trash heaps. The most significant land and soil pollution began during the early 20th century, when factories and processing plants created toxins like PCBs and polycholorinate biphenyls and dangerous pesticides like DDT, or dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane. Dumping and disposal of these chemicals caused pollution of the environment all over the planet; DDT made pelican eggshells too thin, which caused them to break and contributed to some pelicans' extinction; pesticide runoff contaminated whole neighborhoods. Only during the latter part of the century were laws passed to regulate pollutants.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit old mining site image by Inger Anne Hulbækdal from Fotolia.com
