What Is Land Pollution?
Land pollution is a result of dumping garbage, waste, and other toxins making the land contaminated or polluted. The source of land pollution comes from the human element such as littering, and waste that is washed ashore from boats, oil rigs, and sewage outlets. Another factor contributing to this type of pollution is acid rain. The surface of our Earth is also contaminated by poor agricultural practices, mining, and industrial waste.Analyzing the Earth's pollution is currently being explored by both non-profit organizations like EarthPlatform and federal agencies such as the Office of Compliance Assistance and Pollution Prevention or OCAPP. The OCAPP works directly with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a joint effort to control and help clean up both human waste, industrial waste and agricultural waste.
How Concerned Should You Be?
The excessive waste dumped in landfills or other land sites cleared for new construction causes land contamination. If a new building site, whether used for homes, offices or parks, becomes contaminated, the effects of the prior waste to the land could be detrimental. Pollutants may remain in the soil for hundreds of years and when new construction is introduced into the soiled land, the results to human health can be toxic. The research at EarthPlatform suggests that if left untreated, these contaminated soils can cause health problems including cancer and birth defects.
What Can You Do About Land Pollution?
To save our environment and stop the increase of land pollution we must be motivated to consider the inheritors of the Earth, our descendants. What will our children's children have to deal with if we don't make an attempt to control toxins now? A people-idea-exchanging, eco-friendly website,Saving Our Environment, suggests these tips:
- Domestic or human waste - Instead of dumping human waste into designated landfills, much of our waste can be recycled or incinerated to lessen pollutants. State and federal governments need to design, enforce, and control the best ways to deal with domestic waste.
- Agricultural waste - Plant-based insecticides should be used by farmers and with more affordable pricing. If a farmer has a choice of a cheaper insecticide that is not good for the land compared to a more expensive eco-friendly product, which one do you think they will choose? Governments and manufacturers of harmful insecticides need to be more proactive in developing affordable pesticides.
- Industrial Waste - This type of waste comes from mining and mining pools where predetermined holes are used to dump mining waste. Mining and other industrial wastes will contaminate the soil over a period and, again, rules and regulations on how to deal with mining and industrial waste should be addressed and enforced.
- Conservation - To deal with the human element of waste, communities must join to reduce waste, recycle waste or reuse waste. Recycling the waste from our homes is as easy as designating containers for plastics, glass, metals, and paper. Once these types of wastes are mixed, it's hard to recycle them. For example, you can turn food waste into compost for gardening and farming. Glass, plastics, and metals can be returned and recycled at the manufacturer level; however if they can't receive the recycled materials in a single form, the effort fails.
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Summing Up Land Pollution
It's difficult in our world of must-have-items that are wrapped in harmful plastics, shipped from other countries with contaminated packaging, and then dumped without really thinking about how our Earth is affected. You can pitch in by starting a recycling campaign and connecting with local, federal, and state governments to enlist help on starting land conservation programs in your area. For more information on what's being done now, visit some of the websites included in the table above. If you want to go a little farther in your conservation efforts, and find out how plant life helps to clean up natural waste. Become a Bioneer, an organization of people who care about land pollution that you can join for free and receive email updates on what's new in helping our environment. >.