Main Water Pollutants (Examples)

Thewater contamination or Water pollution refers to the alteration of its chemical properties, usually a direct or indirect product of human activities, making it unfit for consumption by animals and human beings, and even for recreational, industrial, agricultural and fishing use. For example: hydrocarbons, radioactive waste, mining tailings.

There are numerous polluting sources that currently besiege rivers, seas and lakes, and even rainwater, and that unbalance the biological cycles that take place inside it, leading to extinctions, mutations, migrations and irreversible ecological damages that, in turn, entail other secondary environmental damages.

There are numerous initiatives to combat water pollution, but they are insufficient for the daily injection of polluting elements that we submit to the planet.

It can serve you:

Water pollutants

1. Hydrocarbons. Not just the big and dramatic oil spills, ecological tragedies absolute that kill animals, plants and microorganisms alike, but also the small emissions of diesel, diesel, oils and other petroleum-derived fuels used in transportation maritime automotive, make their presence felt in the chemical balance of the waters, from the introduction of harmful substances that are difficult to eliminate by
   instagram story viewer
   biotic chains ordinary seas.

1. Urban discharges. All the liquids that we dispose of from our houses through the drainage will, sooner or later, end up in the rivers or the ocean. In that sense, our everyday way of life throws tons of organic waste, industrial solvents, chemical cleaners and consumer oils, which often unbalance the food chain of the seas, promoting the proliferation of certain species over others, or whose decomposition deoxygenates the water, preventing the reproduction of the weakest species.
2. Construction materials. The construction and cement industries often dump waste materials into water (through cleaning or waste removal routines), which leads to the suspension of elements toxicmetals, dense powders) in the water, gradually altering its pH levels and making them less compatible with life.
3. Agricultural substances and wastes. Much of the waste material from the agricultural and livestock industry is dumped into rivers, which lead to the sea. This includes organic material, leftover compost, and often pesticides, pesticides and agrochemicals of a toxic nature, which seep into groundwater or are washed away by rain and then poison the water. Many of these substances are then found inside fish and shellfish that we gladly eat.

1. Discharges from power plants. The water taken by electricity generation plants is often found at temperatures different from those of the sea or rivers. Once these waters return to their course, the total temperature of the environment varies, causing ecological damage to the species that depend directly on the temperature of the water, and indirectly on those that are they feed.
2. Mining tailings. Often the result of illegal mining activities and therefore difficult to control, the spill into rivers of mercury and other substances used in the extraction of minerals Precious plants have a serious effect on the local fauna and flora, as well as the destruction of the soil and indiscriminate logging, activities common to this illegal industrial area.
3. Solid commercial waste. Much of the material that we discard goes to the sea or lakes, where it becomes a harmful agent for the fauna and Flora local, due to its chemical or physical properties. Metals, for example, oxidize in water and react altering its chemical balance, while plastic, which is difficult to biodegrade, accumulates and often enters the body of fish, turtles and birds, causing them death.

1. Radioactive waste. The big point against nuclear power plants is that they generate radioactive material that is highly harmful to life in all its forms and that it can only be contained in lead barrels. Many of them are then discharged into the water in deep seas or ocean trenches, where the cycle of oxidation It releases lead from lead before its active life is over, spreading radioactivity to all local species.
2. Industrial chemical waste. Most manufacturing and material procurement processes by-produce substances that they are then discharged into the river or lakes, where they react in uncontrolled and unforeseen ways with the habitats local, even being able to indirectly contaminate the inhabitants with carcinogenic substances, highly toxic or simply destroying the local chemical balance.

1. Substances that produce acid rain. The pollution of the air and water causes the phenomenon of acid rain, in which toxic substances accompany the water in its cycle or are integrated into it in the atmosphere and then precipitate together with the raindrops, deteriorating the health of local species and often of the population.

Follow with: