Pollution Flashcards
What are the properties of pollutants? How do they affect their impact?
- State of matter, can affect how pollutants are dispersed
- Energy form, changes the impact
- Density, changes dispersal rate and radius
- Persistence, how long the impact lasts for
- Toxicity, how badly the pollutant effects organisms
- Specificity, what organisms will be affected by the pollutant
- Reactivity, how bad the pollution will be in tandem with others
- Secondary Pollutants, further effects of pollution
- Adsorption, how easily the pollutant can be captured
- Solubility in water/lipids, how easily the pollutant spreads
- Bioaccumulation, how easily the pollutant can build up
- Biomagnification, how easily pollutants can be passed up the food chain
- Mutagenic Action, how easily pollutant changes DNA
- Teratogenic Action, how easily a pollutant can affect offspring
- Mobility, how easily a pollutant can spread
What environmental features can affect Persistance?
- light
- temperature
-oxygen level - pH
- Presence of Bacteria
What ways can pollutants chemically degrade?
- Biodegradation, caused by living organisms
- Photodegradation, caused by light
- Thermal degradation, cause by heat
How do we measure the persistence of a pollutant?
Environmental half-life
How do toxic substances usually cause harm?
Damage to proteins, especially enzymes
What is the difference between Biomagnification and Bioaccumulation?
Bioaccumulation is the build up of a pollutant within a single organism. Biomagnification is the successive build up in a food chain
What are common effects of Mutagenic Action?
- Gondiac effects on sperm, eggs or embryos resulting in birth deformities
- Somatic effects that are changes in bodily cells including cancer
- Carcinogenic action, which causes cancer
What is the difference between Mutagenic and Teratogenic action?
Mutagenic affects the DNA of anything, not just unborn offspring while Teratogenic affects the proteins and enzymes that control gene expression. Both can result in birth defects
What environmental features can affect dispersal?
- Wind and Water currents
- Temperature Inversion
- Adsorbent Materials like clay
What is a temperature Inversion?
Where cold air is trapped under warm air usually in a valley thanks to low wind velocities
What strategies can help to control pollution?
- Critical Pathway Analysis
- Critical Group Monitoring
- Control of Emission location
- Control of Emission timing
What is Critical Pathway Analysis?
A method of predicting the path of dispersal a pollutant would take to see if it warrants further action to prevent, of it it will have minimal effects
What is Critical Group Analysis?
A way of assessing public risk of pollutants by monitoring the most at risk group in a community
What are the 4 principles of Pollution Control?
- “Polluter Pays”, the one responsible for the pollution should pay for the prevention and cleaning up
- “Precautionary”, always assume something will cause pollution unless research shows it won’t
- “Selection”, always select the correct method of control
- “Efficiency”, Emissions should be “As Low As Reasonably Achievable” (ALARA) using the “Best Available Technology, Not Entailing Excessive Cost” (BATNEEC)
What categories of pollution control are there? Give example of each
- Production prevention, such as pre-combustion desulfurization
- Release Prevention, such as Catalytic Convertors
- Post-release Remediation, such as oil clean-up methods
- Alternatives, such as electric vehicles or renewables energy
What are the categories of smoke?
PM10: particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter
PM5: particulate matter less than 5 microns in diameter
PM1: particulate matter less than 1 micron in diameter
