Group members:
2O2
Leon Ng Joo Keat (20)
Kenneth Tan Jun Wei (16)
Li Chen Yi (21)
William Sun (31)
Sebastian Guek (10)
Fan Yiheng (08)
We feel that this activity has greatly increased our knowledge about pollution. It now makes us more conscience about our actions so that it would not damage the environment. Although it may not seem like a serious problem in singapore, other countries like china are facing it and we should learn from foreign examples to keep our land clean and green
Through this project, we have learnt that air pollution not only occurs outdoors but It can also occur indoors. In fact poorly ventilated houses can be over 60 times more polluted than the outdoors. I learnt that there can be many sources of pollution indoors, such as wooden stoves and many others. We learnt the many sources of air pollution in the process of researching, air pollution sources are not man-made, and there are natural sources that may give out much more air pollutants than the factories. A volcano eruption can release tons of ash into the sky, blocking out the sun sometimes for months, toxic substances are also released into the environment. This has been a link to our science; we learnt how humans can disrupt the carbon cycle and therefore result in global warming which we are experiencing now. We have also learnt how serious the effects of air pollution can be to the environment and humans. Some toxic substances can actually break down the waxy surface of the plants thus making absorb too much water. Air pollution causes 5billion worth of lost in crops a year. It also causes 2.4 million people to die each year.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Bibliography
Tom Socha(09/11/2007) Air Pollution Causes and Effects. Retrieved August 4, 2011 from http://healthandenergy.com/air_pollution_causes.htm
Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia, Air pollution. Retrieved August 4, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Sources
Oracle ThinkQuest, Problems to solve: Air Pollution. Retrieved August 4, 2011 from http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Special_Features/problems_to_solve__air_polluti.html
Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia, Air pollution. Retrieved August 4, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution#Sources
Oracle ThinkQuest, Problems to solve: Air Pollution. Retrieved August 4, 2011 from http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Special_Features/problems_to_solve__air_polluti.html
Measures
Check For Radon
– Radon arises naturally from the ground and could cause fatal lung cancer. Purchase a testing kit to find out if the radon level in your home is dangerously high.
Don't Smoke
– When you smoke, you not only harm yourself but also create problems for other people's health.
Don't Use Wood Stoves
– Wood stoves emit large amounts of CO indoors. This can build up in your home and create a dangerous health risk.
Drive Less
– Cars are one of the largest sources of air pollution. You should carpool or take public transportation whenever possible.
Have Plants
– Plants can absorb some dangerous chemicals that are polluting your air. In doing so, they reduce your risk of getting sick.
Look For Asbestos
– Many old homes still contain asbestos from when they were built. Asbestos can get into your lungs, stomach, and chest, causing problems that can prove fatal. As a result, you should look around your home for asbestos that is crumbling or loose and remove it.
Minimize Air Conditioning
– If you can avoid air-conditioning, do so. By keeping windows and shades shut, you may be able to avoid needing air conditioning, which will mean using less energy.
Use Efficient Appliances
– To cut down on energy usage, buy energy-efficient home appliances. Less energy usage will not only decrease pollution, it will decrease your energy bill too.
Watch Out For Formaldehyde
– Don't buy products containing formaldehyde because it can enter the air and cause chronic respiratory problems.
– Radon arises naturally from the ground and could cause fatal lung cancer. Purchase a testing kit to find out if the radon level in your home is dangerously high.
Don't Smoke
– When you smoke, you not only harm yourself but also create problems for other people's health.
Don't Use Wood Stoves
– Wood stoves emit large amounts of CO indoors. This can build up in your home and create a dangerous health risk.
Drive Less
– Cars are one of the largest sources of air pollution. You should carpool or take public transportation whenever possible.
Have Plants
– Plants can absorb some dangerous chemicals that are polluting your air. In doing so, they reduce your risk of getting sick.
Look For Asbestos
– Many old homes still contain asbestos from when they were built. Asbestos can get into your lungs, stomach, and chest, causing problems that can prove fatal. As a result, you should look around your home for asbestos that is crumbling or loose and remove it.
Minimize Air Conditioning
– If you can avoid air-conditioning, do so. By keeping windows and shades shut, you may be able to avoid needing air conditioning, which will mean using less energy.
Use Efficient Appliances
– To cut down on energy usage, buy energy-efficient home appliances. Less energy usage will not only decrease pollution, it will decrease your energy bill too.
Watch Out For Formaldehyde
– Don't buy products containing formaldehyde because it can enter the air and cause chronic respiratory problems.
All of these can be summarized in three words: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Effects and Damages
Smog:
Photochemical Smog
-its unpleasant properties result from the irradiation by sunlight of hydrocarbons caused primarily by unburned gasoline emitted by automobiles and other combustion sources
-The products of photochemical reactions includes organic particles, ozone, aldehydes, ketones, peroxyacetyl nitrate, organic acids, and other oxidants.
-Ozone causes eye irritation, impaired lung function, and damage to trees and crops
Industrial Smog
-created by burning coal and heavy oil that contain sulfur impurities in power plants, industrial plants, etc
-consists mostly of a mixture of sulfur dioxide and fog
-This smog is common during the winter in cities such as London, Chicago, Pittsburgh. When these cities burned large amounts of coal and heavy oil without control of the output, large-scale problems were witnessed. In 1952 London, England, 4,000 people died as a result of this form of fog
Damage to plants:
-Pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone and peroxyacl nitrates (PANs), cause direct damage to leaves of crop plants and trees when they enter leaf pores (stomates)
-break down the waxy coating of plants that helps prevent excessive water loss and damage from diseases, pests, drought and frost
-In the midwestern United States crop losses of wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts from damage by ozone and acid deposition amount to about $5 billion a year
Effects to humans:
-The World Health Organization states that 2.4 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, with 1.5 million of these deaths attributable to indoor air pollution
-result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6,000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8,900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.
-breathing, wheezing, coughing and aggravation of existing respiratory and cardiac conditions.
Children
-develop asthma, pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections as well as a low initial birth rate.
Photochemical Smog
-its unpleasant properties result from the irradiation by sunlight of hydrocarbons caused primarily by unburned gasoline emitted by automobiles and other combustion sources
-The products of photochemical reactions includes organic particles, ozone, aldehydes, ketones, peroxyacetyl nitrate, organic acids, and other oxidants.
-Ozone causes eye irritation, impaired lung function, and damage to trees and crops
Industrial Smog
-created by burning coal and heavy oil that contain sulfur impurities in power plants, industrial plants, etc
-consists mostly of a mixture of sulfur dioxide and fog
-This smog is common during the winter in cities such as London, Chicago, Pittsburgh. When these cities burned large amounts of coal and heavy oil without control of the output, large-scale problems were witnessed. In 1952 London, England, 4,000 people died as a result of this form of fog
Damage to plants:
-Pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone and peroxyacl nitrates (PANs), cause direct damage to leaves of crop plants and trees when they enter leaf pores (stomates)
-break down the waxy coating of plants that helps prevent excessive water loss and damage from diseases, pests, drought and frost
-In the midwestern United States crop losses of wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts from damage by ozone and acid deposition amount to about $5 billion a year
Effects to humans:
-The World Health Organization states that 2.4 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution, with 1.5 million of these deaths attributable to indoor air pollution
-result in 12,000 fewer premature mortalities, 15,000 fewer heart attacks, 6,000 fewer emergency room visits by children with asthma, and 8,900 fewer respiratory-related hospital admissions each year in the United States.
-breathing, wheezing, coughing and aggravation of existing respiratory and cardiac conditions.
Children
-develop asthma, pneumonia and other lower respiratory infections as well as a low initial birth rate.
Causes of Air pollution
Human Activity:
-smoke stacks of power plants, manufacturing facilities (factories) and waste incinerators, as well as furnaces and other types of fuel-burning heating devices(stationary sources)
-motor vehicles, marine vessels, aircraft and the effect of sound etc.(mobile sources)
-Chemicals, dust and controlled burn practices in agriculture and forestry management. Controlled or prescribed burning is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement.
-Fumes from paint, hair spray, varnish, aerosol sprays and other solvents
-Waste deposition in landfills, which generate methane and may displace oxygen in an enclosed space. Suffocation may result
-Military, such as nuclear weapons, toxic gases, germ warfare and rocketry
Natural Sources:
-Dust from natural sources, usually large areas of land with little or no vegetation
-Methane, emitted by the digestion of food by animals, for example cattle
-Radon gas from radioactive decay within the Earth's crust. Radon gas is the second most frequent cause of cancer after smoking
-Smoke and carbon monoxide from wildfires
-Volcanic activity, which produce sulfur, chlorine, and ash particulates
Sulfur oxide:
-produced by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulphur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain
Nitrogen oxide:
-emitted from high temperature combustion. Can be seen as the brown haze dome above or plume downwind of cities
Carbon monoxide:
-It is a product by incomplete combustion of fuel such as natural gas, coal or wood. Vehicular exhaust is a major source of carbon monoxide.
Particulate matter(fine matter):
-man made or natural
Natural
- originating from volcanoes, dust storms, forest and grassland fires, living vegetation, and sea spray
Man made
-burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and various industrial processes
Effects
-heart disease,altered lung function and lung cancer.
Ammonia:
-emitted from agricultural processes
-caustic and hazardous
Radioactive pollutants
-produced by nuclear explosions, war explosives, and natural processes such as the radioactive decay of radon.
-smoke stacks of power plants, manufacturing facilities (factories) and waste incinerators, as well as furnaces and other types of fuel-burning heating devices(stationary sources)
-motor vehicles, marine vessels, aircraft and the effect of sound etc.(mobile sources)
-Chemicals, dust and controlled burn practices in agriculture and forestry management. Controlled or prescribed burning is a technique sometimes used in forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement.
-Fumes from paint, hair spray, varnish, aerosol sprays and other solvents
-Waste deposition in landfills, which generate methane and may displace oxygen in an enclosed space. Suffocation may result
-Military, such as nuclear weapons, toxic gases, germ warfare and rocketry
Natural Sources:
-Dust from natural sources, usually large areas of land with little or no vegetation
-Methane, emitted by the digestion of food by animals, for example cattle
-Radon gas from radioactive decay within the Earth's crust. Radon gas is the second most frequent cause of cancer after smoking
-Smoke and carbon monoxide from wildfires
-Volcanic activity, which produce sulfur, chlorine, and ash particulates
Sulfur oxide:
-produced by volcanoes and in various industrial processes. Since coal and petroleum often contain sulphur compounds, their combustion generates sulfur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain
Nitrogen oxide:
-emitted from high temperature combustion. Can be seen as the brown haze dome above or plume downwind of cities
Carbon monoxide:
-It is a product by incomplete combustion of fuel such as natural gas, coal or wood. Vehicular exhaust is a major source of carbon monoxide.
Particulate matter(fine matter):
-man made or natural
Natural
- originating from volcanoes, dust storms, forest and grassland fires, living vegetation, and sea spray
Man made
-burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and various industrial processes
Effects
-heart disease,altered lung function and lung cancer.
Ammonia:
-emitted from agricultural processes
-caustic and hazardous
Radioactive pollutants
-produced by nuclear explosions, war explosives, and natural processes such as the radioactive decay of radon.
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