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What is Pollution?
Pollution is one of the most overlooked concepts in today’s world. Pollution can be defined as adulteration of air, water, and soil by way of a contaminant entering into a natural environment, typically by humans that are unsafe for living organisms.
The most typical kinds of pollution are air pollution, water pollution, ocean pollution, agricultural pollution, and land pollution. all of these various types of pollution have led to an increase in the carbon emissions which has led to climate change.
Below are 70+ Shocking Facts on World Pollution
Fact 1: Pollution is one of the largest killers, impacting more than 100 million worldwide.
Fact 2: More than 1 billion people around the world don’t have access to nontoxic, drinkable clean water. availability to unsafe water is increasing whereas clean water is becoming sparse day by day.
Fact 3: 5000 individuals die per day because of drinking contaminated water.
Fact 4: The waste disposed in the world’s oceans per year is almost around 14 billion pounds. Plastic waste is the main component.
Fact 5: Pollution kills 100 million mammals and more than 1 million seabirds per year.
Fact 6: Communities who reside in high-density urban air pollution regions have a 20% higher risk of passing away from lung cancer than those living in less polluted regions.
Fact 7: Nearly 46% of the lakes in America are exceedingly polluted and therefore unsafe for swimming, fishing, and marine life.
Fact 8: In the great “Smog Disaster” that occurred in London in the year 1952, about four thousand people died in a few days owing to the high concentrations of outdoor air pollution.
Fact 9: The United States makes up 30% of the planet’s waste and uses 25% of the Earth’s natural resources.
Fact 10: The Mississippi River disposes 1.5 million metric tonnes of nitrogen pollution in the form of nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide in the Gulf of Mexico annually.
Fact 11: Each year, about one trillion gallons of unprocessed sewage and industrial waste is disposed in the U.S water.
Fact 12: Children make up only 10% of the world’s pollution but are susceptible to 40% of global illnesses.
Fact 13: More than 3 million kids below the age of 5 years pass away every year because of environmental problems like pollution.
Fact 14: Composting and recycling alone have stopped 85 million tons of waste from being disposed in 2010.
Fact 15: China is the world’s leading producer of carbon dioxide. The United States is number 2.
Fact 16: Nearly 80% of municipal waste in India is disposed in the river Ganges, consequently affecting marine animals.
Fact 17: Noise pollution is the most ignored kind of pollution.
Fact 18: The amount of funds devoted to the nuclear test can be used to fund 8,000 hand pumps, permitting villages in the third world access to hygienic water.
Fact 19: Acidification of the ocean is the most horrible kind of pollution. Oceans are becoming exceedingly acidic because of greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels.
Fact 20: Livestock waste largely adds to soil pollution. Throughout monsoon, water flows over the fields transporting unsafe bacteria from the livestock into the streams.
Fact 21: More than 100 pesticides via any channel – air, water or soil can bring about birth defects, gene transmutation, and cancer.
Fact 22: There are more than 73 different sorts of pesticides in the groundwater, which is used as drinking water.
Fact 23: There are more than 500 million cars in the world, and by 2030 the figure will increase to 1 billion. This means the level of pollution will more than double.
Fact 24: Major oil spills such as the Gulf of Mexico, is the most awful type of pollution because of regular oil spills in the water body, which spreads everywhere else.
Fact 25: House owners employ chemicals that are 10 times more noxious per acre than the quantity used by the farmers.
Fact 26: About 1000 children die in India per year because of diseases created by polluted water.
Fact 27: In India, the Ganges water is slowly becoming poisoned, largely because of the disposing of half-burnt deceased bodies and enshrouded infants.
Fact 28: 88% of the children in Guiyu, China, suffer from different respirational diseases since the place they reside in is a massive e-waste location.
Fact 29: Antarctica is the cleanest place on the globe sheltered by anti-pollution regulations.
Fact 30: Scientific study has established that carbon dioxide emissions are dropping the pH of the ocean and are acidifying them even more.
Fact 31: A single car produces half a ton of CO2, and a NASA space shuttle discharged 28 tons of C02.
Fact 32: Americans purchase more than 29 million bottles of water yearly. Just 13% of these bottles are recycled each year.
Fact 33: Tsunami in Japan in the year 2011 has formed debris of 70 miles, which comprises of cars, plastic, human corpses and radioactive waste.
Fact 34: Cadmium is a hazardous contaminant that kills fetus’ sex organ cells. It is prevalent in a lot of things that we eat and drink.
Fact 35: It takes just 5 days for a jet stream in China to transmit air pollution to the US.
Fact 36: Pollution in China can affect the weather in the US.
Fact 37: World Health Organization (WHO) assessed that 6400 individuals die yearly in Mexico because of air pollution.
Fact 38: A single person in the US generates 2 kilograms of waste daily.
Fact 39: The UAE is one of the leading water consumers and waste producers.
Fact 40: For each 1 million tons of oil transported, about 1 ton oil gets wasted in the form of spills.
Fact 41: Majority of the harmful contaminants that are released in the atmosphere every year make their way to surface water, groundwater, and land, combined.
Fact 42: Around 3 billion people deprived of proper housing and healthcare cook in and heat their households using open fires and leaky stoves, therefore causing more pollution and global warming.
Fact 43: Chronic obstructive respiratory disease (COPD) that develops because of indoor air pollution is accountable for the passing away of more than 1 million people annually.
Fact 44: The people more vulnerable to high ozone levels are youngsters, seniors, people with lung disease, and people who are outdoorsy.
Fact 45: A glass that is manufactured from recycled glass as an alternative of raw materials can lessen associated water pollution by 50% and air pollution by 20%.
Fact 46: If you think that you don’t smoke and you will be safe from lung cancer, recall that your lungs or heart can also be affected solely from contact to ozone and particulate matter.
Fact 47: Sites that are close by to heavy traffic roads, seaports or railyards are an unsafe area to live or work since they have more concentrated levels of air pollution.
Fact 48: In metropolitan areas, where there is a lot of traffic and cars run bumper-to-bumper, the contaminants in the air can percolate into your car, making the air you inhale inside your car up to 10 times more unclean than typical city air.
Fact 49: In 1987, the U.S. discharged 1.2 million tons of poisonous chemicals into the atmosphere, 670,000 tons into the ground, and 250,000 tons into the water.
Fact 50: In the U.S., 41% of all pesticides are used on corn. 80% of these are employed to treat a pest that can be regulated easily by rotating the corn for one year with any other crop.
Fact 51: Public transport and carpooling can help you to decrease air pollution and save money up to a large extent.
Fact 52: Animal farming is accountable for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the collective exhaust from all transportation.
Fact 53: Animal farming is the primary reason of species disappearance, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat devastation.
Fact 54: Emissions for agriculture are expected to surge by 80% by 2050.
Fact 55: Animal farming is answerable for up to 91% of Amazon’s damage, counting livestock and feed crops and 136 million rainforest acres deforested for the same. Up to 137 plant, animal and insect species are lost daily owing to rainforest devastation.
Fact 56: Livestock is accountable for 65% of all human emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which remains in the atmosphere for 150 years.
Fact 57: Livestock and their derivatives make for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide every year or 51% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
Fact 58: Methane has a global warming potential 86 times that of CO2 and is 25-100 times more damaging than CO2 on a 20-year time cycle.
Fact 59: Cows release 150 billion gallons of methane every day. Even devoid of fossil fuels, we will surpass our 565 gigatonnes CO2 bounds by 2030, all from raising livestock.
Fact 60: The U.S. Methane emissions from natural gas and livestock are almost equivalent.
Fact 61: Livestock practices on land have produced more than 500 nitrogen flooded dead zones across the globe in our oceans.1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the principal cause.
Fact 62: Decreasing methane emissions would produce palpable advantages almost instantly.
Fact 63: A person who has a vegan diet generates the equal of 50% less carbon dioxide, consumes 1/11th oil, 1/13th water, and 1/18th land in comparison to a meat eater..
Fact 64: Every day, an individual who practices a vegan diet conserves 1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 sqft of forest land, 20 lbs CO2 equivalent, and a single animal’s life.
Fact 65: Land needed to feed 1 person for a year: Vegan – 1/6th acre, Vegetarian – 3x as much as a vegan, Meat Eater – 18x as much as a vegan.
Fact 66: Animals create enough waste to cover San Francisco, New York City, Tokyo, etc.
Fact 67: In the U.S., livestock create 116,000 lbs of waste each second and 7 million pounds of dung are produced by animals nurtured for food each minute.
Fact 68: A farm with 2,500 dairy cows creates the same volume of waste as a town of 411,000 people.
Fact 69: Animal waste is generated 130 times more than human waste in the U.S. 1.4 billion tons from the meat business yearly, and 5 tons of animal waste is produced by each person in the U.S.
Fact 70: Energy-related emissions are estimated to rise by 20% by 2040.
Fact 71: Shifting to the wind and solar power will take 20+ years and almost 43 trillion dollars.
Fact 72: Cleanup operations can protect animals’ lives and stop people from littering in the future.
5 Surprising Facts About the Air Quality in China
Bad air quality in China isn’t a shock to someone who’s read the news in the last few years. Since China has become a globalized, developed capital, its air pollution has developed in proportion to its success.
At its wickedest, air quality has reached crisis conditions, risking the wellbeing of tens of millions of people. At its finest, China’s poor air quality disperses briefly, particularly in expectancy of key events like the 2008 Beijing Olympics or national government meetings.
However what you don’t know about China’s air quality may astonish you. A lot of us simply hear breaking news about main urban areas like Beijing, but the issues (and solutions) reach far outside China’s city bounds. Its metropolitan population represents only 56% of the republic’s populace and only a portion of the country’s stories about air pollution.
1. Poor air quality is a man-made problem.
Mounting numbers of automobiles and plants are powered by coal and are the main sources of the country’s hazardously high levels of air pollution.
2. Layout and weather contribute to Beijing’s notoriously poor air quality.
Beijing’s pollution is usually exacerbated by the nearby mountains. As the mountains make a natural barrier on all sides, toxins gather fast since they can’t be spread as simply by wind and other climatic processes that generally clear the air of impurities in less rocky areas.
Furthermore, throughout winter, a lot of Beijing’s pollution is confined in the lower atmosphere by temperature inversions. Inversions occur when warm air high in the atmosphere traps cold air in the lower atmosphere, averting pollutants from naturally escalating to high altitudes away from the air that people respire at ground-level.
3. Weather events affect U.S pollution.
Ample investigation demonstrates that air pollutants originating in China frequently ride global wind flows, impacting air quality in the United States and yonder in the Western Hemisphere. Air pollution can’t constantly be forecast with quite as much precision as the weather can be, so these areas are mostly inept to predict and prepare for inflows of air pollution.
4. China has a secret weapon in the fight against poor air quality.
As China’s dust storms exemplify, soil erosion where plants and trees have been flattened adds to air pollution not only in China but in extensive areas across the globe. Between huge amounts of dust particulates through the hot months, with rises in coal emissions during the cold months, China and all the nations in the path of the pollutants that journey around the globe seldom get a break for clean air.
5. China leads the world in clean energy.
Over the past few years, as China comes to be a significant player on the world stage, a chain of high-profile, emergency-level air quality situations urged China to take the lead in the world’s pledge to clean energy, particularly since other main economic powers have taken a back seat to worldwide sustainability supervision.
If this data isn’t sufficient enough to give a wake-up call, then, especially, much needs to be achieved beyond that. Take initiative and stop pollution yourself now!
