Where is pollution found on earth

This pollution can damage ecosystems, negatively affect plants and trees, and contaminate our drinking water. As the damage from pollution has become more apparent, more countries are looking to green alternatives to prevent further damage to the Earth.

Solar and wind energy, eco-friendly building materials, and non-toxic products are increasingly being used to preserve the planet. While these green initiatives are taking place around the world, some countries have a long way to go. These particles come from car, truck, bus, and off-road vehicle exhausts and from operations that involve the burning of fossil fuels such as wood, heating oil, or coal. They can also originate from indoor sources such as smoking tobacco, cooking, burning candles, or using fireplaces.

These particles reduce visibility and make the air appear hazy when levels are elevated. Some cities, such as New York , issue a PM2. The AQI ranges from 0 to , with zero representing clean air and being the most hazardous. Values of or below are generally thought of as satisfactory; however, when values are above , air quality is considered unhealthy for certain at-risk groups of people and becomes more unsafe as the value increases.

The cleanest countries in the world , as determined by the Environmental Performance Index EPI , have high air quality, clean water, and strong environmentally-friendly policies and initiatives.

These countries include Switzerland , France , and Denmark. A total of 92 nations were evaluated to determine which had the highest number of PM2. Bangladesh is the most polluted country in the world, with an average PM2. The country's primary environmental pollutants are air and water pollution, groundwater contamination, noise pollution, and solid wastes. Dhaka City is one of the most polluted cities in the world.

In terms of air pollution, Bangladesh's largest source is its brickmaking industry , which employs one million people and creates 23 billion bricks every year.

The kilns used in brickmaking burn wood or coal and create mass amounts of smoke and dust. Due to increased demand for bricks, the brickmaking industry is only expected to grow more, leading to more air pollution.

Data is provided by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, utilizing their Burden of Disease dataset for The data source is Air Visual which compiles data on daily basis. This program is limited by budget and geographic focus of the funders and therefore only shows a small percentage of the toxic sites in Low and Middle-Income Countries. The data source is ContaminatedSites.

Blacksmith Index: A ranking system, the Blacksmith Index, ranks the severity of the site using a logarithmic scale. Annals Of Global Health : Caravanos, Jack, et al. Data is presented on a country by country basis, and can be sorted based on risk factors. Toxic pollution affects more than million people worldwide, according to Pure Earth , a non-profit environmental organization.

In some of the world's worst polluted places, babies are born with birth defects, children have lost 30 to 40 IQ points, and life expectancy may be as low as 45 years because of cancers and other diseases. Read on to find out more about specific types of pollution. Land can become polluted by household garbage and by industrial waste. In , Americans produced about million tons of solid waste , according to the U.

Environmental Protection Agency. A little over half of the waste — million tons— was gathered in landfills. Organic material was the largest component of the garbage generated, the EPA said.

Wood contributed to 6. Commercial or industrial waste is a significant portion of solid waste. According to the University of Utah, industries use 4 million pounds of materials in order to provide the average American family with needed products for one year.

Much of it is classified as non-hazardous, such as construction material wood, concrete, bricks, glass, etc.

Hazardous waste is any liquid, solid or sludge waste that contain properties that are dangerous of potentially harmful to human health or the environment. Industries generate hazardous waste from mining, petroleum refining, pesticide manufacturing and other chemical production. Households generate hazardous waste as well, including paints and solvents, motor oil, fluorescent lights, aerosol cans and ammunition.

Water pollution happens when chemicals or dangerous foreign substances are introduced to water, including chemicals, sewage, pesticides and fertilizers from agricultural runoff, or metals like lead or mercury. The EPA also states that the United State's most common contaminants are bacteria, mercury, phosphorus and nitrogen. These come from the most common sources of contaminates, that include agricultural runoff, air deposition, water diversions and channelization of streams.

Anthropologists often cite this event as the spark that truly allowed us to become human, giving us the means to cook, keep warm and forge tools. But fire also marked another important first for us: the invention of man-made pollution. Pollution, by definition, is something introduced into the environment that harmfully disrupts it. Wherever we go, we seem to have a knack for leaving our rubbish and waste behind. Visit even the most remote outpost on the planet and you will witness this first hand.

Shredded tyres and plastic bottles punctuate the vast expanse of the Gobi desert; plastic bags ride the currents in the middle of the Pacific; and spent oxygen canisters and raw sewage mar the snows of Mount Everest. Still, the world is a big place. Might there be some last holdouts free from the taint of our pollution? Answering that question works best if we break down the environment into four realms — the sky, land, freshwater and ocean. Air pollution comes in many forms. Smog is mostly composed of particulate matter and ozone — a greenhouse gas that forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds produced by cars and industrial plants react together in the presence of sunlight.

And its impact on human health and the environment can be severe. In terms of human health , outdoor air pollution costs an estimated one million lives per year, while air pollution produced in homes — usually a by-product of cooking fires — kills around two million people annually.

The skyline of Beijing - often blanketed in smog Getty Images. When carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and other primary pollutants those that are injected directly into the atmosphere find their way high into the atmosphere, they often get transformed through chemical reactions into what scientists refer to as secondary pollutants.