Important reminders:

Presentation on Honors course 3 & 4 October @ 13:15 in

Science Centre, Westville Campus

!!!!!!! Hons. Applications close 31 October for admission in

2008!!!!!
 Download Biol347 PowerPoint presentations:

http://marinesci.ukzn.ac.za/documents/

and choose the BIOL347 folder

REMEMBER: Each weeks presentations will only be

available after the Tuesday lecture. Presentation only
provide the framework, please do some extra reading on
each subject you are expected to do 68 hours of self-study
during the course of the semester, i.e. about 5 hours per
week

Resource use and
management
People and natural resources
Fundamentals of energy, fossil fuels,
nuclear energy
Renewable and alternative energy
sources
Water resources
Conserving Biological Resources
Land Resources and management
Food and Soil Resources
The Environment and
People
Overview of Environmental science
Human Population growth
Dealing with
Environmental
The Environment Live on
Degradation
Earth
Principles of Pollution control,
The Biosphere: Populations, Toxicology and Risk
Communities, Ecosystems and
Biogeochemical cycles Water Pollution
The distribution of Live on Earth Air Pollution: Local and Regional
The dynamic earth and Natural Hazards Air Pollution: Destruction of the Ozone
layer and global climate change
Municipal Solid Waste and Hazardous
Waste
Social Solutions to
Environmental Concerns
Environmental Economics
Historical and Cultural Aspects of
Environmental Concerns
Principles of Pollution
Control

Pollution and waste are

symptoms, not causes, of the
environmental crisis.

Paul Hawken

Pictures 2006 Jones and Bartlett Publishers

 Chapter objectives

What is meant by pollution

How pollution is produced

How pollution is controlled

 What is pollution?

Pollution = societys excess output into the environment

Something produced in amounts high enough to be

harmful to us, other life, or valuable objects
 Pollution has many faces
Pollution as matter cycling and energy flow

The environment ultimately consists of matter cycles and energy flows.

Pollution represents local concentrations in the matter cycle or energy flows

e.g. Heat pollution is a form of air and water pollution

 Pollution has many faces
Pollution as an accelerated natural process

Not only man-made, e.g. Volcanoes release gasses that is harmful to life, affect
global climate and cause acid rain.

People cause pollution at a greater rate than nature, because:

High quantities of waste produced
Quality of waste accelerates pollution because of lots of new
substances e.g. dye
 Pollution has many faces
Pollution as a stepwise process
High volumes of waste produced as by products for other products/
processes

Everything must go somewhere as either energy flowing or matter cycling

As a result, waste often end up in water, air or land.

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) / Cradle to grave analysis can pinpoint steps in
processes that can either be eliminated or made more efficient

Therefore: Cradle to grave pollution = the many ways a product can

pollute in its lifetime

Pictures 2006 Jones and Bartlett Publishers

Pollution has many faces
Pollution as a stepwise process

Pictures 2006 Jones and Bartlett Publishers

 Pollution has many faces
Pollution = population x consumption
The amount of pollution depends on:

(1) The number of people

(2) The amount of waste produced per person (determined by consumption)

Therefore:

Pollution = population x consumption

OR
Pollution = population x consumption
OR
Pollution = population x consumption
 History of pollution

Pollution exists from the beginning of time!!!

Ancient volcanoes helped form the atmosphere
Later on gasses from erupting volcanoes caused mass extinctions
Animals pollute rivers with urine and feces
Bird droppings can contaminate areas surrounding nests
Early civilizations discarded their waste (evidence in caves)
Egyptians and Greeks had polluted drinking water

Today, the scale of pollution is much greater due to:

Large human population
Fossil fuel-driven technologies
 Controlling pollution
No water is pure in nature:
Before people existed, water contained gasses and other substances
Highly polluted water only contain 1 % toxins and other pollutants
Raw sewage entering treatment facilities contained at least 99.9 %
water. The problem: sewage and toxicant molecules are much
larger than water molecules
Zero pollution is an unrealistic goal:
Modern society cannot exist without producing pollutants
Total purity is economically impossible the cost of removing all
pollutants increases exponentially after a given point
Total purity is unnecessary the benefits of pollutant removal
decrease exponentially after a given point
Not even nature is totally pure
Controlling pollution
How much to control?

Pictures 2006 Jones and Bartlett Publishers

 Controlling pollution
What to control?

Low cost High cost

Pictures 2006 Jones and Bartlett Publishers

 Controlling pollution
Pollution control vs. remediation vs. restoration

Pollution control aims to remove the pollutant and dispose of it in a landfill

or incinerator, e.g. cleaning up toxic fly ash from electricity generating
plants. Very expensive.

Remediation counteracts some of the effects of pollution after it has been

released into the environment, e.g. treat lakes contaminated with acid rain
with lime. Very expensive

Restoration seeks to reinstate the environment to its former condition.

Extremely expensive
 Controlling pollution
Implementing pollution control

There are three basic ways prevent people from polluting:

Persuasion: Ask people to change polluting behavior. Should be

accompanied by education. Very cheap, but not too effective.

Regulation: Pass laws requiring less pollution. Most useful when polluters
are few in numbers and pollution can be easily monitored, e.g. hazardous
waste of large factories.

Incentives: Reward behavior that reduces pollution, e.g. tax incentives and
subsidies for renewable energy use. Much lower cost than regulation.
Examples: (1) deposits paid when potential waste is purchased and (2) pay
as you throw schemes, where the polluter has to pay for discarding waste
 Controlling pollution
Implementing pollution control

There are three basic ways prevent people from polluting:

Persuasion: Ask people to change polluting behavior. Should be

accompanied by education. Very cheap, but not too effective.

Regulation: Pass laws requiring less pollution. Most useful when polluters
are few in numbers and pollution can be easily monitored, e.g. hazardous
waste of large factories.

Incentives: Reward behavior that reduces pollution, e.g. tax incentives and
subsidies for renewable energy use. Much lower cost than regulation.
Examples: (1) deposits paid when potential waste is purchased and (2) pay
as you throw schemes, where the polluter has to pay for discarding waste