Endocrine Disruptors - Pollution Goes Beyond Plastics

I went out and I saw cans littered everywhere like it was no man's business. Well as a good person who was interested in the sanctity and positive impact of our activities on the ecosystem, I decided to pick it up to dispose it properly but then picking this one can or picking a million more can doesn't look like it will have any effect on the ecosystem, because there are other types of pollution that are more concerning which are ones we cannot see, or ones we do not have access to.

Pollution would be defined as anything at the wrong place, and at the wrong concentration giving negative effect on the earth and the ecosystem and while we might want to think of pollution as things that are from chemicals either from processing plants that are big or from small mixes but you will be surprise to know that natural compounds at the wrong place in the wrong concentration will do as much damage as that pesticide being made or the insecticide being used.

wikimedia

When there is a mess with the bio-geo-chemical cycles of our ecosystem, then it is because there is an altering concentration of natural compounds and one of the cycles that we have been messing with and wight possibly be a problem is the carbon cycle. Carbon is found in the atmosphere, the ocean, and the body of living things including plants and animals but we are currently overloading this cycle in our adventure to get carbon-rich resources such as coal, oil and gas for civilization and for wealth creation. We burn this carbon and now there are more carbon in the atmosphere than the reservoirs can handle the thereby causing the carbon to hang around as a greenhouse gas.

Just like we have been affecting the carbon cycle, we have also been affecting the phosphorus and nitrogen cycles in the same effect. Although, we need them to grow but when they are excessive in the atmosphere, they can become a problem. Phosphate and Nitrates are basically the main ingredients in fertilizers and detergents which are things we use on a regular which means that we are continually releasing these chemicals to the water bodies from rivers to streams which can cause huge algal blooms in the water body which would chock plants and animals in water bodies.

getarchive

Annoying of all, when the phosphorus and nitrogen is used up, the algae die which then gives room for bacteria to start to manifest on the decomposed algae. Since the bacteria need oxygen to decompose the algae, they take the oxygen from the water thereby reducing the oxygen level in the water leading to a dead-zone for everything that needs oxygen to survive. This happened in the gulf of Mexico in the Mississippi river.

Cyanide laced rock powder from mining activity of gold, silver and other precious metals is another hazardous waste that we need to deal with. Although miners try to tail the cyanide to cyanate which is not toxic but this is not always complete leading to ground water supply thereby becoming a pollutant or it dissolves other metals like mercury that finds their way into water bodies leading to the death of fishes and aquatic lives.

Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide is another pollutant that is present in our ecosystem, and these come from volcanic eruptions or bacteria and algae waste. We can also release them from the burning of coal which becomes sulfuric acid when the react with vapor in the atmosphere to become acid rain which can affect growth of plant and some animal death.

You see, compared to the cans, and plastics that we dispose improperly which is actually bad for our ecosystem, there are a lot of activities that we engage in that causes pollution in our world.

---

---

^{Post Reference}

---

---

^{https://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8835578/
https://www.freedrinkingwater.com/blogs/water-quality/1-what-nitrate-and-phosphate-do
http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/pollution-affect-living-things-including-humans-2193.html
https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine
https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5506515/
https://scdhec.gov/sites/default/files/Library/CR-008071.pdf
https://www.amjmedsci.org/article/S0002-9629(15)32593-3/abstract}