Cleaning Up Coasts and Estuaries

Keep a watch

Many inshore pollution incidents are the results of illegal dumping. Water belongs to all of us: reporting offenders help to prevent them repeating their actions.

Boycott polluters

A number of household products particularly paint and plastics can cause severe water pollution during manufacture. Although pollution may be within legal levels, it does not have to happen at all. It can be stopped by consumers boycotting persistent polluters.

Prevent pollution afloat

To protect the marine environment, boat-owners should dispose of rubbish on land. We do not have a right to pass on our rubbish to marine life.

Action on sewage

If you live in an area where sewage is disposed of by dumping it at sea, let the authorities in charge of waste disposal know that they should use land-based methods of disposal instead.

Do not use anti-fouling paints

These toxic paints, which are used to prevent encrustation of boat hulls, kill shellfish not only on boats but also around them. Responsible boat-owners should not use them.

Watch out for plastic hazards

Clear plastic is particularly dangerous to aquatic animals because it is invisible underwater. Fishing lines and the plastic retainers from packs of cans can strangle birds and seals. Picking it up will prevent this happening.

Read more...

How To Reduce Water Pollution

Liquid detergents

The main problem with these is their phosphate content. Use phosphate-free or low-phosphate washing-up liquid if you can obtain. If not, try reducing the quantity you use.

Washing powders

No-one with a washing machine can avoid using these. However, try experimenting with reduced quantities-remember manufacturers have an interest in making you use more than is actually necessary.

Bleach and scouring powders

Again, the problem here is one of quantity. Very dilute bleach left to work for longer is just as effective as a strong solution poured away after a few minutes.

Water fresheners

Don't use them. They do not "freshen" water at all-rather they pollute it with synthetic perfumes and colors.

Garden chemicals

If you garden organically, using only natural products on the garden, you will avoid causing any water contamination.

DIY chemicals

None of these should ever be poured down a drain or sink. Pure cellulose wallpaper paste can go on the compost heap: other chemicals should be poured into a deep hole well away from plants.

Car cleaning and maintenance

The same rule applies here as for DIY chemicals - do not pour oil, battery acid or car polishes down the drain. Do not use detergents in excessive quantities.

Read more...

Air Pollution Sources

There are three types of air pollution sources: point, area, and line sources. A point source is a single facility that has one or more emissions points. An area source is a collection of smaller sources such as emissions from residential heating within a particular geographic area. A line source is a one-dimensional, horizontal configuration such as roadway. Most emissions emanate from a specific stack or vent. Emissions emanating from sources other than stacks, e.g., storage piles or unpaved lots, are classified as fugitive emissions.

EPA requires that each step develop emissions inventories for all primary pollutants and precursors to secondary pollutants that are classified as criteria or hazardous air pollutants. In clean, rural areas, country-wide emissions totals for individual pollutant species may be all that is needed as long as emissions from large point sources are inventoried separately. For urban areas having severe air pollution problems, gridded emissions inventories are required. An area is divided into grids, typically 5 to 10 km to a side, and area-and line- source emissions are calculated for each grid. Large point sources are listed individually. Such inventories are used as inputs to sophisticated air quality models, employed to develop air pollution control strategies.

Emissions rate for a specific source can be measured directly by inserting sampling probes into the stack or vent and this has been done for most large point sources. It would be an impossible task to do for every source in an area inventory, however. Instead, emission factors, based on measurements from similar sources or engineering mass-balance calculatios, are applied to most sources. An emissions factor is a statistical average or quantitative estimate of the amount of a pollutant emitted from a specific source type as a function of the amount of raw material processed, product produced, or fuel consumed. Emission factors for most sources have been compiled. Emission factors for motor vehicle are determined as a function of vehicle model year, speed, temperature, etc. The vehicles are operated using various driving patterns on a chassis dynamometer. Dynamometer-based emissions data are use in EPA's MOBILE 4 model to calculate total fleet emissions for a given roadway system.

Read more...