Ecological and social Footprint Flashcards
What is mining
The removal of minerals and metals from the Earth (aluminium)
Give a positive of mining
Can create a huge amount of employment and income for countries
Give some disadvantages of mining
Damages the environment - contaminates the the water supplies and threatens communities and indigenous people
Trees and vegetation are cleared and burned in order to make space for mining
In order to separate metal from their ore, chemicals such as cyanide and mercury are used. This can often end up in rivers and streams contaminating water supplies and poisoning marine life and local fish.
What is river dredging
Moving along a river using a suction hose to collect gravel and mud.
This travels down pipes where metal fragments are collected.
This can disrupt the flow of fish causing them to die
What is drilling
Used to extract liquids or gas from underneath the earth’s surface, either on land or on sea.
How can drilling affect the trees
Causes disruption as roads have to be created in order to make way for large machinery and camps of people
This encourages the arrival of other companies to do stuff like logging
So companies like logging ones now have access to forests that might of once be protected
How does drilling harm the surrounding environment
Dangerous chemicals are used to extract the oils
This material id difficult to disposed of, so companies have been found to dump these materials into wells and pipes, leading to huge impacts to those who live there
Oil harms wildlife when touched, inhaled or ingested.Damage can occur in the central nervous system, liver and lungs and animals often die. If oil comes into contact with a birds feathers it can prevent them from flying and even drown them when on water. It also prevents them insulating themselves which can lead to hyperthermia and death.
Drilling leads to atmospheric pollution when exes is burnt and carbon dioxide is produced, contributing to global warming.
(methane produces -greenhouse gas).
When does fishing have to be stopped
Oil spills - marine life is poisoned
How can oil spills affect tourism
If the oil devastates huge areas and makes water dangerous and unattractive to swimmers.
How much of the Earth’s usable land has been transformed into farming land
50%
Give a disadvantage of the amount of land for farming
Huge impact in the earth’s natural resources and habitats
e.g destruction of areas of rainforests for palm oil plantations. This dramatically reduces the natural habitats of the Sumatran rhino and tigers, and the Asian elephant in places such as Maylasia and Indonesia.
Describe the soil erosion from farming
Farming uses 7% of the worlds usable water supply, so less water available for other purposes
Causes huge large scale erosion, where large rooted trees that help to hold areas of soul together are replaced by crops.
Large areas of nutritional top soil are often blown or washed away leaving fewer nutrients necessary for successful crop growth
Soil is eroded away to silt up rivers and destroy important water supplies. This can lead to flooding.
Whats the problem with pesticides and fertilisers
These chemicals kill insects and threaten the produce
If there are fewer trees and less vegetation in forests, wild animals have…………..to live and the population……..
Fewer places
Decreases
This also applies to the indigenous people
How much rainforest is the Amazon losing per year
200,000 acres per year
Due to mining, logging and farming for products such as palm oil or soybean cultivation.
How much of the logging in the Amazon is illegal
60-80%
What are the 6 R’s
Reduce Reuse Recycle Rethink Repair Refuse
Give some guidelines that designers have to ensure when making a product
Employment should be a choice and no-one should be forced to work
Working conditions should be safe and hygienic
Workers should be paid a living wage which is high enough to maintain a normal standard of living
Child labour should not be used
Working hours should not be excessive
Give a positive of plastics
Useful or relatively cheap material that can be formed into a range of objects
Give some disadvantage of plastics
Plastics is becoming one of the biggest problems in terms of iconic pollution
It does not degrade quickly and when disposed of, washes into our oceans and stays there for many years
Can create huge problems for marine life and birds can be potentially harmed too.
Microbes can end up into our water systems and are ingested by marine life, so it ends up in us too
Oceanic pollution - How much plastic ends up in the ocean every year
8 million metric tonnes
This is the same as 5 shopping bags filled with plastic for every 300m of coastline.
this will double by 2025
How can we solve plastic in the ocean
Making them bio-degradable
Made of barley and wheat - can be eaten by marine life
What is atmospheric pollution
Gas is in the air which is in a big enough quantity to cause damage to health of people or animals, kill or damage plants or effect buildings
Give some types of pollution
Sulphur dioxide - Coal burnt in power stations
Carbon monoxide - Cars, boilers not functioning properly
Carbon dioxide - Burning fuels
Give the effects of atmospheric pollution
Changes the quality of the air we breathe in and can cause problems to our health.
Affects crop yield, farming and create problems in our ozone layer.
Give some impacts that designers have to consider
The extraction of raw materials
The manufacturing processes used
The treatment of workers
Transportation of materials and products
How easy it is to repair the product
The disposal of the product
Why are timbers reused
To reduce the amount of trees cut down
Give examples of rescuing timbers
Building industry - Beams and structural pieces of timbers may be refused into things like floorboards.
Old railway sleepers often used in landscape gardening
Using temporary fixtures such as nuts, bolts and screws means………………..
Products can be easily be dismantled
Where is bauxite ore (for aluminium) found
Generally found in tropical forest areas, which are among the most threatened ecosystems
What is good about aluminium
It can easily be recycled without damaging the material
Polymers are an important material that allows for…….manufacture of complex shapes that would be………or difficult to make in other materials
Mass
Expensive
Many plastics are……recycled, ending up in the ground or oceans
Not
How can we make polymers more eco friendly
They can be mixed with additives to help them break down more quickly
Or they can be made from biodegradable materials such as corn starch
What often happens to polymers at the end of their life
They are burnt, releasing harmful gasses including carbon dioxide
What is being done to help the recycling of plastics
Councils now have roadside collections just for plastics and products now include a stamp so plastics can be sorted and recycled with other plastic products made form the same material
When mining - give the impacts of the chemicals used
The chemicals can cause her to humans particularly when ingested in large quantities and the locals don’t have medical assistance near by.
When people of the area know the water is contaminated, they can’t use it for drinking, washing or bathing etc.
Give some disadvantages of river dredging
Once the raw material has been extracted, it has to be melted down. This requires energy generally in the form of charcoal which is made form trees, causing them to be cut down in the local area - further deforestation
