Keywords: pollution; Health; affect
I. Overview
Physical contamination refers to the phenomenon that the environmental quality declines due to human activities, which adversely affects the normal survival and development of human beings and other creatures. When various physical, chemical and biological factors enter the atmosphere, water and soil environment, if their quantity, concentration and duration exceed the self-purification ability of the environment, it destroys the ecological balance, affects human health and causes economic losses, it is called environmental pollution. The production of environmental pollution is a process from quantitative change to qualitative change. At present, the main cause of environmental pollution is the waste and unreasonable utilization of resources, which makes useful resources turn into waste and enter the environment, causing harm.
Environmental pollution will cause direct damage and influence to the ecosystem, such as desertification and forest destruction, and will also cause indirect harm to the ecosystem and human society. Sometimes this indirect environmental impact is more harmful than the direct harm caused at that time, and it is more difficult to eliminate. For example, the greenhouse effect, acid rain and ozone layer destruction are all environmental impacts caused by air pollution. This kind of environmental effect from environmental pollution is lagging behind, and it is often difficult to be detected or predicted when pollution occurs. However, once it happens, it means that environmental pollution has developed to a very serious degree. Of course, the most direct and easily felt consequence of environmental pollution is to reduce the environmental quality of human beings and affect their quality of life, physical health and production activities. For example, urban air pollution causes air pollution, and the incidence of people is rising. Water pollution worsens the quality of water environment, and the quality of drinking water sources generally declines, threatening people's health and causing environmental pollution such as premature birth or malformation of fetus. It refers to the phenomenon that human beings directly or indirectly discharge substances or energy that exceed their self-purification ability to the environment, thus reducing the quality of the environment and adversely affecting human survival and development, ecosystems and property. Specifically, it includes water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution and radioactive pollution. Water pollution refers to the change of chemical, physical, biological or radioactive pollution characteristics of water body due to the intervention of some substances, which affects the effective use of water, harms human health or destroys the ecological environment, and leads to the deterioration of water quality. Air pollution refers to the phenomenon that the concentration of pollutants in the air reaches a harmful level, which destroys the ecological system and the conditions for the normal survival and development of human beings and causes harm to people and creatures. Noise pollution refers to the phenomenon that the environmental noise generated exceeds the national environmental noise emission standard and interferes with the normal work, study and life of others. Radioactive pollution refers to the appearance of radioactive substances or rays exceeding the national standards on the surface or inside of substances, people, places and environmental media due to human activities.
Second, the main types of environmental pollution
air pollution
1, overview of air pollution
The atmosphere is a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and solid impurity particles in a certain proportion. As far as clean air is concerned, in terms of volume, in the standard state, nitrogen accounts for 78.08%, oxygen accounts for 20.94%, argon accounts for 0.93%, carbon dioxide accounts for 0.03%, and the volume of other gases can be ignored. Various natural changes often cause changes in atmospheric composition. For example, when a volcano erupts, a large amount of dust, carbon dioxide and other gases are injected into the atmosphere, which causes the volcanic eruption area to be full of smoke and toxic gases; Large-scale forest fires caused by natural causes such as lightning will also increase the content of carbon dioxide and smoke particles. Generally speaking, this natural change is local and short-lived. With the development of modern industry and transportation, more and more substances are continuously discharged into the atmosphere, and the types are becoming more and more complex, causing drastic changes in atmospheric composition. When substances other than normal components in the atmosphere are harmful to human health, animal and plant growth and meteorological climate, we say that the atmosphere is polluted.
2. Harm to human health
People need to breathe air to keep alive. An adult breathes about 20,000 times a day and inhales 1.5 ~ 20 cubic meters of air. Therefore, polluted air has a direct impact on human health. The harm of air pollutants to human body is various, mainly manifested in respiratory diseases and physiological dysfunction, as well as the irritation of mucosal tissues such as eyes and nose.
For example,1February 5-8, 952, the soot incident in London, England, killed 4000 people. People call the smoke of this disaster "the smoke of killing people". According to the analysis, this is because there was no wind and fog in London, and the smoke and dust generated by factory chimneys and residents' heating permeated the urban area of London for a long time. The highest concentration of smoke and dust reaches 4.46 mg/m3, and the daily average concentration of sulfur dioxide reaches 3.83 ml/m3. Sulfuric acid droplets produced by chemical reaction of sulfur dioxide attach to smoke or condense on fog droplets, and enter organs with breathing, which makes people sick or accelerates the death of patients with chronic diseases.
3. Types of air pollutants
There are many kinds of air pollutants, and their types may be solid particles, drops or gases, or a mixture of these types. What are the definitions of air pollutants in Chinese laws and regulations at present? According to the definition and relevant regulations of the Air Pollution Prevention Law, air pollutants can be divided into four categories, namely gaseous pollutants (including sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, chlorine, gasified hydrogen, fluoride, chlorinated hydrocarbons, etc. ), particulate pollutants (including suspended particulate matter, gold bureau smoke, black smoke, acid fog, dust, etc. ), as well as secondary pollutants (pollution caused by photochemical reactions of pollutants in the air). Common air pollutants include suspended particles, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, etc., which are mostly caused by human factors. In China's laws and regulations, most air pollutants (such as chimney emissions, automobile emissions, etc.) are produced by human factors. ) have "emission standards" to regulate their own emissions.
(2) Water pollution
1, overview of water pollution
With the industrial progress and social development, water pollution is becoming more and more serious, and it has become the number one environmental control problem in the world.
As early as the18th century, Britain only paid attention to industrial development, but neglected the protection of water resources. A large amount of industrial waste water and residues poured into the river, which caused the pollution of the Thames and basically lost its use value, thus restricting economic development and affecting people's health and survival. After 100 years of treatment, it invested more than 500 million pounds. It was not until the 1970s that the water quality of the Thames was improved.
/kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, the Rhine River in Germany was also seriously polluted. To this end, the German government has implemented strict laws and invested a lot of money to protect water resources. After decades of unremitting efforts, with the cooperation of the countries where the Rhine River flows and the European Union, the clear water of the Rhine River can flow smoothly and reach the drinking water standard.
In recent years, the deterioration of water quality has also troubled Americans. New york citizens have always been proud of the pure quality of tap water, and bakers in other states even use tap water from new york to make real new york donuts. Seven years ago, parasites invaded Milwaukee's water supply system, causing 65,438+000 deaths and 400,000 illnesses. Since then, water quality issues have attracted much attention. Nowadays, new york citizens live under the threat of unclean drinking water every day. From 65438 to 0998, US President Bill Clinton announced a water purification action plan, investing 2.3 billion US dollars to control 40% of the polluted waters in the United States.
Although people have realized the evil consequences of polluting natural water resources such as rivers and lakes and started to control them, it is too late to wake up after all.
2. Harm of water pollution
The increasingly serious water pollution poses a great threat to the survival and safety of human beings and becomes the main obstacle to the sustainable development of human health, economy and society. According to the investigation of international authoritative organizations, 8% of all kinds of diseases in developing countries are spread by drinking unsanitary water, which causes at least 20 million deaths worldwide every year. Therefore, water pollution is called "the world's number one killer".
Water pollution affects industrial production, increases equipment corrosion, affects product quality, and even makes production impossible. Water pollution affects people's lives, destroys ecology, directly harms people's health and causes great damage.
(1) After water pollution harms human health, pollutants enter the human body through drinking water or food chain, causing acute or chronic poisoning. Arsenic, chromium, ammonium, pyrene, etc. It can also induce cancer. Water polluted by parasites, viruses or other pathogenic bacteria will cause many infectious diseases and parasitic diseases. Water polluted by heavy metals is harmful to human health. Water and food polluted by cadmium will cause kidney and bone diseases after people eat it. Ingestion of 20 mg of cadmium sulfate can cause death. Lead poisoning can lead to anemia and insanity. Hexavalent chromium is very toxic, which can cause skin ulcers and cause cancer. Drinking arsenic-containing water can cause acute or chronic poisoning. Arsenic inhibits or deactivates many enzymes, leading to metabolic disorders, skin keratinization and skin cancer. Organophosphorus pesticides can cause neurotoxicity, while organochlorine pesticides can accumulate in fat, which is harmful to endocrine, immune and reproductive functions of human beings and animals. Most polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are carcinogenic. Cyanide is also a highly toxic substance. After entering the blood, it combines with the pigment oxidase of cells, which interrupts breathing and causes respiratory failure, suffocation and death. We know that 80% of the diseases in the world are related to water. Typhoid fever, cholera, gastroenteritis, dysentery and infectious liver disease are the five major diseases of human beings, all of which are caused by unclean water.
(2) Water pollution is harmful to industrial and agricultural production, and industrial water must be treated with more expenses, resulting in a waste of resources and energy. The food industry has stricter requirements for water. If the water quality is unqualified, it will stop production. This is also a factor of low efficiency and poor quality of industrial enterprises. The use of sewage in agriculture will reduce crop yield and quality, even harm people and animals, pollute large areas of farmland and reduce soil quality. The consequences of marine pollution are also very serious, such as oil pollution, which causes the death of seabirds and marine life.
(3) Harm of water eutrophication Under normal circumstances, oxygen has certain solubility in water. Dissolved oxygen is not only the survival condition of aquatic organisms, but also participates in various redox reactions in water, promoting the transformation and degradation of pollutants, which is an important reason why natural water bodies have self-purification ability. The discharge of domestic sewage containing a large amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium leads to the degradation of a large number of organic substances and the release of nutrients in the water, which promotes the excessive growth of algae and plants in the water, makes the water body poorly ventilated, reduces dissolved oxygen and even appears anaerobic layer. A large number of aquatic plants die, the water surface turns black, and the water stinks to form a "dead lake", "dead river" and "dead sea", which in turn becomes a swamp. This phenomenon is called water eutrophication. Eutrophicated water has an unpleasant smell, dark color and many bacteria. This kind of water is of poor quality and can't be used directly, which prevents the fish from dying.
3. Examples of water pollution
1. 1 Minamata disease incident 1953 1956
The wastewater discharged by a nitrogenous fertilizer company in Minamata Town, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan contains mercury, which is converted into methylmercury by some organisms after being discharged into the bay. These mercury are concentrated in seawater, sediments and fish, and they are poisoned through the food chain. At that time, the most sick cat was the one who loved fish. The poisoned cat went crazy and twitched and committed suicide by jumping into the sea. In a few years, even cats disappeared in Minamata. 1956 patients with symptoms similar to those of cats appeared. Because the reason was not clear at first, it was named after the local place name. 199 1 year, there are still 2248 poisoned patients announced by the Japanese Environment Agency, of which 1004 died.
1.2 bone pain incident 1955 1972
Cadmium is an element that the human body does not need. Some lead-zinc mines in Toyama Prefecture, Japan discharge wastewater during mining and smelting, and the wastewater accumulates heavy metal "cadmium" in rivers. People who drink such river water for a long time and eat rice irrigated with cadmium-containing river water will suffer from severe bone deformation, severe pain, shortened body length and brittle bones.
1.3 The Rhine River is polluted by toxic substances 1986.
1 65438+1October1day, the warehouse of Sandoz chemical plant in Basel, Switzerland caught fire, and nearly 30 tons of highly toxic sulfides, phosphides and mercury-containing chemical products flowed into the Rhine with fire extinguishing agent and water. In the downstream 150km range, more than 600,000 fish were poisoned, and the well water on both sides of the river bank was not drinkable within 500km. The waterworks along the river bank closed and the brewery stopped production. Poisons deposited at the bottom of the river will make the Rhine "extinct" for 20 years.
1.4, tanker pollution incident in Torikanrong1967 March 18, seven rocks in southwest England.
The ship loaded with 1 17000 tons of crude oil hit the rocks at Qiyan Reef east of Li Si Islands, causing 80,000 tons of crude oil to flow into the sea, and the residual crude oil in the ship was detonated, causing crude oil pollution in the British and French waters. A large number of fish, shellfish and seabirds died, and the compensation amount reached 7.2 million US dollars. After this incident, marine pollution has become an important maritime issue.
(3) Environmental hormone pollution
1. Environmental hormones are chemicals released into the environment due to human production and living activities, which affect the endocrine system of human beings and animals. Their effects are similar to those of estrogen, and they are called "exogenous endocrine disruptors" academically.
2. Types of environmental hormones
1. Organic compounds: benzo [a] pyrene, bisphenol A (2 2,2-bisphenol propane), benzophenone, phthalate esters, styrene, dioxins, etc.
2. Bactericides: benomyl, hexachlorobenzene, mancozeb, etc.
3. Insecticides: β-hexachlorobenzene (β-HCH), carbaryl (carbaryl), chlordane (carbon octachloride), etc.
4. Herbicides: weed rope (Trazzo, Australia), herbicide (triazole), atrazine and so on.
5. Nematicide: 1, 2- dibromo -3- chloropropane, aldicarb, etc.
6. Metals: cadmium, lead, mercury, etc.
7. Natural and synthetic hormone drugs: estriol, estrone, diethylstilbestrol, etc.
8. Plant sex hormones: plant sex hormones of leguminous plants and cabbage, celery and other plants.
3. Effects of environmental hormones on human body
3. The influence of1.on body shape
Hormones play a vital role in shaping human body shape. The existence of environmental hormones may interfere with the secretion of growth hormone and other hormones in human body, leading to the emergence of "pocket girl" and "giant" Eating a lot of big fish and meat containing environmental hormones can also lead to obesity.
3.2. Effects on reproductive system
● Causes children to be precocious. In recent years, cases of abnormal sexual development such as menarche and chest development in children have increased year by year. This endocrine disorder is closely related to the food that pregnant women eat during pregnancy and the growth of their children, such as meat, fish, various health products and some vegetables.
● The number of people asking for transsexuality has increased. Some people who want to be transsexual are hermaphroditic, that is, hermaphroditism occurs in people. The difference between men and women, in addition to the role of chromosomes, environmental hormones are also indispensable.
The appearance of multiple births. The birth miracles of twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets and septuplets have all appeared. In addition to genetic factors, the use of ovulation induction drugs is one of the main reasons for the increase of multiple births.
● The quantity and quality of male sperm decrease. China experts found that from 1984 to 1996, the total number of sperm injected by men decreased by nearly 1/3, and the sperm density decreased by 27%. If this continues, more and more men will not produce enough sperm in the future. In addition, sperm motility will decrease, deformities will increase, and human reproductive capacity will become worse and worse.
3. Effect on fetus
After the fetus is affected by maternal environmental hormones, there may be various abnormal phenomena such as malformation and low energy in the development and life of the fetus, such as hypospadias in men, testicular arrest, penile shrinkage and decreased sperm count, endometriosis and breast cancer in women, as well as mental retardation, hyperactivity and learning disabilities.
Every example of environmental pollution can be said to be a wake-up call from nature to mankind. In order to protect the ecological environment and maintain the health of human beings and future generations, we must actively prevent and control environmental pollution. In order to do a good job in the prevention and control of environmental pollution, every citizen must strive to enhance environmental awareness: on the one hand, we must clearly realize that human beings often pollute and destroy the ecological environment in the process of developing and utilizing natural resources; On the other hand, we should turn this understanding into our own practical actions, actively participate in various environmental protection activities with the attitude of "protecting the environment, everyone is responsible", and consciously cultivate environmental protection ethics.