InterAmerican Wiki

Pollution

Definition

Pollution - in an environmental sense - is the (1) act of introducing harmful substances or - in a more general sense - contaminants into the natural or semi natural environment or (2) the state of being contaminated (Ross and Amter 2010; Hardman et al. 2011). Depending on the concentration or the amount of the pollutants, pollution may cause adverse change of the environment.

Aside from chemical substances (gases, e.g. carbon dioxide, liquids, e.g. contaminated water or solids, e.g. particulate matter, radioactive elements) pollutants can also be energy, noise, light or heat. As in many environmental cases, substances normally non-harmful or essential for biological life (e.g. carbon dioxide) may cause environmental damage in higher concentrations (Harrison 2001). Although pollution has a negative connotation, it may be sometimes caused by natural phenomena e.g. emission of poisonous gases or volcanic ashes in the course of volcanic eruptions.

In general and in the environmental protection sense - a pollutant or contaminant is a natural or waste material that pollutes the air, water or soil. Most notable and pertinent pollutants are POPs (persistent organic pollutants) emitted by industrial production, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAC), volatile organic compounds and - with increasing concern - environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants (EPPP). Up to now there is no clear idea or method on how to deal with this problem, especially those occurring in bigger cities. In the general definition of pollutants, noise as an anthropogenic waste material also contaminates the air. Carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas - must also be mentioned here. The concentration of CO2 in the air has increased by about 43% compared to the beginning of industrialization caused by deforestation, the degradation of soils and the combustion of fossil fuels (NOAA Online 2005). Most countries of the world have committed to the Paris agreement and are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (see UNFCCC secretariat 2019). The US government just withdrew from the agreement and Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have signed the agreement but not ratified.

Three factors determine the severity of a pollutant: its chemical nature, the concentration of this substance and the persistence of the specific substances in the air, the soil or the water. Pollution can occur outdoors but also indoors. Sometimes the latter is called the “Sick Building Syndrome”, mainly caused by tobacco smoke or gases from stoves and furnaces (Daly and Zanetti 2007).

When analysing the most polluted cities of the word, one of the top ten is a South American city: La Oroya in Peru. Most other cities are located in the Asian and Russian part of the world and one city is in Africa (Blacksmith 2007). One indicator of pollution is PM 2.5 (particular matter). On a world average particular matter is estimated to 31 microgram per cubic meter, in Latin America and the Caribbean about 8 microgram per cubic meter are reached (World Bank 2015). Comparing the cities in the Americas, The World Pollution Index of 2015 shows this ranking (measured as an overall pollution index): (1) La Paz (Bolivia) 106.4, (2) San Salvador (El Salvador) 94.2, (3) Lima (Peru) 85.57, (4) Fresno (CA, USA) 85.56, (5) Mexico City (Mexico) 83,44, (6) Recife (Brazil) 79.89 (Numbeo 2016).

History of Pollution

“Pollution” is a very old phenomenon. It has accompanied civilizations all over the world since ancient times. Some of the first emissions of pollutants occurred with open fires (Daly and Zanetti 2007). Dull et al. stated (2010) that indigenous slash and burn agriculture in the Neotropical forests/lowlands before the arrival of Europeans was one of the first forms of pollution in the Americas. They suggest that the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions was caused by the mass-death of indigenous peoples through European diseases and thereby the consequent reduction of clearing forest by fires. This – in their opinion - led to a cooling of the global atmosphere.

There are very few reports about Pre-Colombian civilisation and pollution. De Vleeschouwer et al. (2014) demonstrated that early metallurgy caused copper and antimony emissions from northern South America to southern South America.

A key turning point in the Americas in terms of pollution was their hegemony on the world`s silver market from 1570 until end of the last millennium (Nriagu 1994). Especially the invention of the so-called cold technology increased mercury pollution in both North and South America (Nriagu 1994). This patio process with the intense waste of mercury remained unchanged until 1870 in the mines of South America (Brading and Cross 1972). Still now, estimates on the mercury amounts cycling through the atmosphere are 118000 tons in Central and South America and 38000 tons in North America (today there are about2269 tonnes of Hg emitted from all anthropogenic sources worldwide (Pacyna etal. 2006). From the 1880s onwards, the process of cyaniding (a process of metal hardening in which an iron alloy is heated in contact with cyanide) has been used by U.S. companies in Mexico (Beatty 2015: 134-53).

One of the breaking points in pollution and environmental change was the start of the Industrial Age (about 1870) with huge amounts of wood and coal, burned for the manufacture of products. Starting in Europe, industry also spread to the Americas (Clark 2007). It first occurred in Great Britain and other countries in Europe during the late eighteenth century. It then concentrated on the United States of America and Germany.

As (intensive) pollution has changed the present atmosphere, global biosphere and global pedosphere (entity of all soils and soil matter) being quite different from the “natural” status before the Industrial Revolution (or even earlier) many authors entitle the 21^th century as the epoch of the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000).

Sources for Pollution

Sources of pollution can be very diverse. The highest amount of pollutants on a global scale is caused by traffic and transportation and by the combustion of fossil fuels. Other stationary sources of pollutants are power plants (coal fired), nuclear waste from power plants, oil refineries and oversized livestock farms, chemical plants and metal factories (Harrison 2001). In recent times the problem of the plastic litter (“plastic pollution”) is of increasing concern (e.g. the “Great Pacific garbage patch”) in the case of soil and water pollution (Hammer et al. 2012, Eriksen et al. 2014).

Forms of pollutants

The different forms of pollutants are highly diverse, and it is nearly impossible to categorize them. One way to do this is to assign them to the media they pollute. Here are some examples: litter (every form of anthropogenic waste); air pollution: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide, ozone, hydrocarbons; light pollution: over-illumination, light trespass; noise: aircraft noise, roadway noise, industrial noise, loud music; soil and water contamination: oil, fertilizer, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, herbicides, pesticides, radioactive substances, waste water, chlorine; plastic pollution: plastic products, microplastics (Harrison 2001, Ross and Amter 2010, Hardman et al. 2011).

Effects on the environment

Environmental pollution and its consequences may be considered one of the major problems of the 21^th century. Manmade pollution of the planet seems to be irreversible in many cases (Harrison 2001). There are few regions and ecosystems in the world that are not exposed to pollutants and their consequences (Freedman 1995). Many pollutants in the air, soil and water endanger public health all over the world and are often the cause of pollutant specific diseases. The relationship between e.g. air pollution and specific diseases has often been documented (Lave and Seskin 2011).

On the other hand, the environment is directly affected by pollution. This may lead to e.g. decreases or changes in biodiversity as a direct effect of global warming, to bio-magnification effects of diverse substances with a direct effect on human diets. But also human culture is influenced: pollutants like sulfuric acids may have damaging effects on historic buildings (Freedmann 1995).

Public perception of the phenomenon and public policies against pollution

Understanding and analysing the public perception of the pollution phenomenon in the Americas is not so easy. Most studies of environmental concern focus on Northern America, Europe and Japan (Saksena 2007). In the last decades, the effects and the “visible” signs of pollution have increased but in many countries and, also in the few studies especially in South America, environmental concern has not changed. People have more pressing problems than pollution, they do not realize the direct correlations of illness and pollution or feel that they have limited (or no) influence to change the current situations (Taylor 2000; Saksena 2007).

However, in the United States there is distincthistory of environmental protection including an awareness of pollutants, starting in the 1960s with political institutions (EPA) evolving during that time. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) was established on December 2, 1970 (Hanna 2009). It merges and coordinates all strategic tasks of research, standards and enforcement activities to safeguard environmental protection. With President Trump’s term there is a tremendous decline in the public acceptance, significance and funding of this institution.

As an example of the perception of pollution (here enrichment of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), a study on global warming in 2001 revealed that “the citizens of Mexico led all fifteen countries surveyed in 2001 with just twenty‐six percent of the survey respondents correctly identifying burning fossil fuels as the primary cause of global warming. The citizens of the U.S., among the most educated in the world, were somewhere in the middle of the pack, tied with the citizens of Brazil at fifteen percent, but slightly lower than Cubans” (Brechin 2003).

Although all people are affected in the same way by pollution, the awareness of the problem may vary between different races and ethnic groups. In his study on environmental risk perception among race and ethnic groups in the United States, Macias (2015) found that “the dominant pattern is greater perceived risks among non-whites than whites across generations” (Macias 2015: 111). These findings include risk perception of climate change, nuclear power, air and water pollution and agricultural chemicals. He also showed that these racial and ethnic minority groups (not gender specific) showed not only greater concern for these global pollution problems than the majority population, but also expressed more concern on these global problems than on local issues (Macias 2015). The higher the household income the less was the risk perception.

There have been many attempts to control pollution and pollution damage in the last decades. In North America the establishment of the EPA was a reaction of the government to the increasing pollution damage and people’s concern about environmental problems in the United States. Neoliberalism and neoliberal policies in South America in the last 25 years were expected to create more changes in environmental policies. Liverman and Vilas (2006) examined such effects but they stated that these effects on environmental management and legislation varied greatly by nation and by place.

In contrast to the Americas, an increasing awareness of pollution and environmental problems has caused most of the European states and their governments to act (e.g. Rosenthal 2009; Hill 2010). In the last decades, many NGOs in the European countries put pressure on the government to enforce environmental legislation. In the Americas, economic reasons may often hinder environmental changes. Rosenthal (2009) argues “that culture — more than [North-]Americans’ callousness about the planet — has led to a lifestyle that generates the highest per capita emissions in the world by far”.

While environmental regulations in both subcontinents may be very different due to historical developments, the InterAmerican perspective (that touches the humanities and social sciences) comes in through the issue of environmental justice (Bullard 2005; Cutter 2012; Rassmussen and Pinho 2016). The term environmental stresses the coherency between environmental changes (e.g. climate change) and social differences. In both North and South America it is disproportionally ethnic minorities/indigenous groups and/or economically disadvantaged groups who live either directly in or in close proximity to polluted/contaminated landscapes and areas and who suffer the health consequences of this situation. The fact that ethnic minorities/indigenous groups/economically disadvantaged segments of society are often forced to live in contaminated areas is often due to the historical logic of placing “nuisance” industries in particular places of settlements (back of town, down-stream of the center), where they are out of the way of the more affluent segments of society and where property is cheap, often also where there are other environmental risks.

Thomas Steinlein

Please cite as:

Steinlein, Thomas. 2019. "Pollution." InterAmerican Wiki: Terms - Concepts - Critical Perspectives. https://uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtungen/cias/wiki/p/pollution.xml.

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