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The activities of man and their effects on the environment can be seen all around us. We add materials to the air and water. We build mansions around the world. We use energy everywhere in the world to develop into an industrialized and modern nation.
Everyday environment changes occur in the World. These changes often give rise to problems.
In this post you will be reading about factors which affect our environment. These are often the result of decision that have been taken at a high level. To make good decisions, one has to have accurate information. Some scientific, in this research on the environment, try to provide this information. However, scientists can not alone make the final decisions.
These decisions affects so many people now and in the future that politicians and civil servants usually play a greater role in taking such important final decisions than scientific do. Also, scientist can only hope to influence the decisions that have to be taken by presenting to the decisions makers all the possible consequences of their decisions. As a student of science and general public, it is hoped that you will understand that scientists should be consulted and adequate funded so that they can continue their research.
In this post, I will be discussing about the following problems:
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* Pollution
* Air
* Water
* Oil spillage
Weather is one of the important things to be talking about and understand because man has not been able to control weather but understanding and predicting it has enabled us to plan our work and adapt to it.
**Pollution:**
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Chris_LeBoutillier](https://pixabay.com/en/global-warming-pollution-environment-2958988/)
Physical defilement, the act of polluting or the state of being polluted, especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances. Pollution is a major environmental problems affecting people all over the world, included Nigeria. However, it has not received the attention it deserves as it has received in other parts of the world.
For example, motor vehicles, particularly lorries, trailers and petrol tankers, pollute the air with thick black smoke from their exhaust pipes with impurity and are allowed to go free. This calls for concern you and I should be interested enough as to want to find a solution to this problem.
Many of us might have been learnt or read about pollution in our various homes and about refuge and sewage. In this post you will learn about the materials and substances that pollute the air and water.
When substances are introduced into air and water which make them harmful to life, they are said to be polluted. Such harmful substances are called pollutants. During the burning of coal and oil substance are produced during this burning If combines with water in the atmosphere and other chemical substances to form an acidic, this may resulting to acid rain..
**You ask what is Acid Rain?**
Acid rain is caused by a chemical reaction that begins when compounds like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released into the air and this happen as a result of human activities through burning of coal and oil. Chemical release to the atmosphere from company burning and lorries burning, trains and others by human activities when these substances rise very high into the atmosphere, where they mix and react with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form more acidic pollutants, reactions from substances that rise to atmosphere from burning react with other chemicals pollutants in the atmosphere resulting to form acid rain.
Having read and understand what is meant by pollution and pollutants, let us further discuss about types of pollutants.
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**Air Pollution:**Air pollutants cab be solid, liquid or gases. The number of solid particles that be can be found suspended in the air depends upon many things. The reason of the year will make a greater difference; for instance there is a great deal of additional dust and sand during the dry season.
The locality or environment is also a relevant factor. A jar left near dusty road will collect different materials from one left near on a grassy playing field. The contents of a jar left near an industrials site will also be different from the jar left near a school. If you were to identify the different solid particles that could be collected in the jar you will find such things as sand, dust, pollen and seeds and other small parts of plants, soot and other particles that are released in to the air during burning.
This implies that the air we breathe is not pure as it contains many solid particles. The respiratory tract however, is designed to eliminate some of these particles.
There is a need to reduce or control the activities that produce air pollutants. These are many gases that pollute the air and harm living things, I remember what we were leant in our primary and secondary educations that when too many people sleep in the same room the air cab become polluted. In this case, the pollutant or the substance that causes the problem, is carbon (IV) oxide.
Carbon(IV)oxide is normally found in the air but very small quantities. When the amount increase to make the air unhealthy, it becomes a pollutants.
Carbon monoxide that is (carbon(II)oxide) is another pollutants. It is an odourless gas and is formed when hydrocarbons burn in a limited supply of air. You might have heard about families who dead from smoke produces by generator sometimes ago, or you might have read about a family dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Usually this happen when a family is trying to keep warm at night by burning a fire in an unventilated room. As the amount of oxygen in the air is reduced by burning, the carbon (II) oxide starts to form and you know what that means?
Carbon(II)oxide (CO) react with the blood and prevents it from taking up oxygen thus people are suffocated. Most of the carbon(II)oxide in the air comes from the burning of petroleum products by cars and others vehicles. It can come from burning of refuge as well.
Another gaseous pollutant is sulphur(IV)oxide. This is produced during the burning of coal and oil. It combines with water in the atmosphere to form an acid. This and other acid chemicals arising from the chemical pollution of air, makes the rainfall called ACID RAIN. Acid rain is a heavily debated topic in ecology and environment education. The change in the acidity of water causes changes in water population of plants and animals.
The change in the acidity of water causes changes in the water population of plants and animals. Acid rain is also known to destroy many public works of art and architecture by reacting with the limestone; iron and other materials from which they are made.
**Water Pollution:**water can be contaminated in many ways, but one’s common ways is by humans wastes and thus become unsafe for human use. Water can also become polluted with other waste materials, but is able to purify itself through the water cycle.
Some ecologists and environmentalists look at the amount of oxygen in water as an indications of healthiness. Water rich in oxygen is healthy. It has been says and learnt that oxygen is necessary for respiration in all living things.
Oxygen is also necessary for the decomposition of organic matter. When waste materials are discharge into water, living things have to compete for oxygen with the decaying waste that was been passed into the water. Some ecologists and environmentalists have observed that those organisms which need a lot of oxygen are quick to disappear from polluted body of water.
The addition of nitrate and phosphates also indirectly decrease the amount of oxygen in the water. Although Nitrates and phosphates are generally found in fertilizers and also, phosphate are added to detergents but immediately when these substances are washed from the land into the stream and rivers, algae begin to multiply. With an increase in the algae population, other animals’ populations that feed on such also increase in size. This increase in the population and decrease in amount of oxygen in the water. When the algae and other organisms die, their decay uses up even more oxygen. Water in this conditions will have foul smell because of the large amount of decay occurring in it and when that happens such water is useless to most living things which including man.
**Note:** water can be healthy for other living things yet it can be unsafe for human being use. In most cases, when water is treated for human use, large particles and deadly micro-organisms are removed. Poisonous chemicals, however, usually pass through water treatment processes as dissolved salts. Since we have read and learnt about problems which might possibly arise as results of waste discharged into the water, there is needs also, for us to know how we can treat our sewage.
**Treatment of Sewage**
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**Sewage is treated for two reasons.**
The harmful micro-organisms must be killed and
The amount of organic materials returned to the water must be reduced. Very few methods of sewage treatment do both of these things.
Like we all know that many of the homes in our urban centres are connected to septic tanks. Inside these septic tanks, anaerobic bacteria decompose organic matter and harmful micro-organisms die. Normally, water from the septic tanks pass into soak-away, and then into the soil, free of organic materials as well as harmful micro-organisms.
Sometimes ago, we learnt that of our new towns and in our plans for new cities, the people will have the service of central sewage systems. In these towns, the sewage from all of the homes is carried through large pipes underground to a central location where the sewage is treated before the water is emptied into nearby river, lake or ocean.
**There are three kinds of treatment that can occur in a sewage treatment facility, they are:**
* Primary Sewage Treatment (PST)
* Secondary Sewage Treatment (SET)
* Tertiary Sewage Treatment (TST) or Trickling Filtration Process (TFP)
***Brief explanation about these treatment of sewage which I mentioned above.***
**Primary Sewage Treatment:**
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This sewage treatments removes bacteria’s and suspended solids in the sewage and this treatment process removes about half of the bacteria’s and suspended solids in the sewage, firstly, waste has to be screened to remove larger objects, then after this grit is removed, and finally the rest of the solids are extracted using gravity in large sedimentation tanks.
**Secondary Sewage Treatment**
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In this treatment process removes an additional 35-40 per cent (or a total of 85-90 per cent) of the suspended solids in the water. Chlorine can be added in to this treatments process. After primary and secondary treatment we all know that is when tertiary will come in, to kill the harmful micro-organisms in the water.
**In tertiary sewage treatment**
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The waste water is treated even more to produce cleaner water that will be emptied into the waterways. But there are very few cities in the world that use tertiary sewage treatment. Treatment levels which beyond secondary are called tertiary treatment of sewage or can be called advanced because the technology can be extensions of conventional secondary biological treatment to further stabilize oxygen-demanding substances in the wastewater.
This advanced or tertiary treatments is most the safest because this treatment of sewage removed nitrogen and phosphorus which might escape to the atmosphere to form acidic rain. Sometimes tertiary treatments of sewage may also involve physical-chemical separation techniques such as carbon adsorption, precipitate which is the advanced filtration in order to achieve or produce cleaner waters before it will be emptied in the waterways.
If the sewage is given the secondary treatment, less oxygen will be needed to break down the organic materials released into the waterways, lakes, or ocean.
If primary sewage treatment is used, the waterways will become polluted but they will not be as polluted as those in which there is no treatments of sewages at all.
**Oil Spillage**
Oil has brought much wealth to country of the World especially those country that has oil, well on this issue of oil spillage I will use Nigeria being one top leading oil nations of the world, oil has brought a tremendous wealth and boost Nigeria economy which is being used to facilitate development. But, one of the side effects of the production of oil is the possible pollution of water.
In 1981, it was estimated that 6 million tonnes of oil polluted Nigeria water each year. One tenth of this amount occurs through accidental spillage while most of the remaining 5.4 million tonnes was caused by constant dripping of petroleum products from ordinary activities in all phases of the oil industry.
Additionally pollutants enter the water through fallout from the gas flares, used lubricating oils, oil tank washing, emptying of water used to balance empty oil tankers when they are moving in the ocean, and leakages from marine vessels and outboard engines.
An accidental spillage can be devastating. In January 1980, an offshore oil rig exploded. Within two weeks, the equivalent of over 280,000 barrels of oils spilt into the sea according to the news that was released.
This oil, with the aid of the waves and wind, was spread along 100 kilometres of coastland and 30 kilometres inland along the delta. Most of the people who lived in this area, including Rivers State, some of these people depends on fishing for their livelihood, but the oil spillage changed their lifestyle, and lot of people lost their jobs as a result of this. The drinking water was polluted, although oil-company helped them to dig wells to find water but two years after the spillage life had not returned to normal.
Oil spillage has since become a regular occurrence to the extent that the entire oil area has been devastated and has almost become a waste land.
**Oil spillage is a major environmental threat because it leads to:**
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* Loss of farmlands
* Degradation of the environment
* Loss of fishing ponds and grounds (that is fishes and other aquatic animals are killed or drastically reduced).
* Water pollution
* Damage to beaches and sea shores
* Loss of job/means of livelihood (farmers, fishermen and fisherwomen)
Also, there is one important thing to know which is **GAS FLARING*&, you may have been read or heard about some region in a country which they usually changes/repair their houses roofing almost every year or yearly basis which places especially regions where crude oil is found such occur as a result of Gas Flaring, this gas flaring occur through burning of gases from crude oil wells.
Gas flaring occur in a region where crude oil is found in every oil nations. Gas flaring leads to:
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- Air Pollution
- Acid Rain and;
- Global Warming.
Therefore this call for everyone attention the needs to safe guard our environment, by educating ourselves what should be done to make us live safely.
This gas flaring usually occur at the region where crude oil are found, but who know if the amount of substances from burning of gases from crude oil wells keep rises in the atmosphere which may causes acid rain or global warming to affect our environment, before that happen we need to act.
In Conclusion, Pollution has said to be a major environmental problem affecting people all over the world this calls for general attention the need to reduce or control the activities that produce air pollutants which may lead to **ACID RAIN** like we all know that the threat facing the world at large today which call for our attentions is “Air Pollutions” if we must live in a safety environment we need to avoid or reduce our days activities which contribute to form air pollutants which may lead to acid rain to affect or threat aquatic animals and destroy many things.
Community and Government responsibility are to ensure that burning of coal and oil are to be reduced or control, early at the beginning of this post I mentioned that politicians and government can help solve the environmental problem by establishing activated sludge process and trickling filtration process which will help to treat sewage. And also, establishing of Liquefied Natural Gas Company which will help solve the problem of gas flaring so as to have a healthy environment.
Thanks for reading my post.
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Regards
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@dabbey
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Information source: Science Teachers Association of Nigeria 1972-2005.
Science Teachers Association of Nigeria, Allan Cadogan et al and Heinemann Publishers: 2.13,4.1
Nigeria Integrated Science Project, 2014-2015;
Environmental Controlling issues, United States Information Services: 11.5, 11.8, 119.