By Sophie Cao, Sidwell Friends School
When you think of pollution, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Plastic? You may not know that other forms of pollution exist, or the history behind them. Plastic is one of the most well-known types of pollution, because of how fast it has spread around the world. However, other types of pollution such as light, noise, and soil pollution are often overlooked despite their harmful effects. These forms of pollution date back to the Industrial Revolution and are caused by human waste and mismanagement.
Leo Baekeland, a Belgian chemist, created bakelite in 1907 at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic ever made. Later, it was discovered that this synthetic could be molded to manufacture objects. Whether it was used for water bottles, medical material, or space travel, plastic was deemed useful for anything and everything. But, because of its usefulness, it created a throw-away culture. Plastics from microwaveable meals were soon discovered to live longer than humans. Synthetic products, with nowhere to go, were poured into the ocean through sewage. This is the reason that the idea of “out of sight, out of mind” became a common perspective on treating waste. Marine life suffered heavily from plastics polluting their ecosystems, and many ended up poisoned by waste.
As a response, the United Nations held conventions on these issues. In 1972, the “Stockholm Conference” was held as the first attempt to control ocean dumping. The “Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1975,” or simply “The London Convention”, focused on parameters to prevent more ocean pollution. Regulations continue to focus on the pollution of our planet by plastics. However, other devastating forms of pollution remain largely unregulated.
Our night skies have been the spark for masterpieces. Take The Starry Night, by Vincent Van Gogh, or Starry Night by Edvard Munch. Now, it’s the opposite. Light pollution has entered our world and with it a canvas of inspiration has disappeared. Cities are emitting massive amounts of light with a truckload of unseen consequences. Obtrusive night lights can harm human health and cause chaos in ecosystems.
Light pollution’s harm to the body stems from the body’s circadian rhythm, also known as the body’s clock because it determines when you feel tired or energetic based on light stimulus. With so much light being emitted at any given moment, our circadian rhythm is confused, causing a constant state of exhaustion for people who live in areas that produce high amounts of light pollution.
Light pollution causes dire consequences for animals and their ecosystems. Because animals rely on their own circadian rhythms, lights often lure creatures into environments where they do not belong. As a result, many animals are hit by cars. Animal-human encounters also can result in unnecessary animal deaths. The lights during the night can convince nocturnal creatures to believe that it is the day, which disrupts their life cycle. Some frogs breed during nighttime, but when it is bright out, they will not breed. Other animals use the dark as a cloak for hunting, but when the cloak is gone, their success rates sink. Birds that migrate also depend on natural lights such as stars and the moon to properly plot their migration route. When there are city lights competing for their attention, migrating birds typically depart at the wrong time, and their journey comes more hazardous.
Another overlooked type of pollution is noise. Noise pollution is unwanted noise, whether it is a rock concert or a leaf blower. Noxious sounds plague the earth from land to sea. This form of pollution began with man’s first words. With an increase in loud technology, noise pollution has worsened. Effects of noise pollution aren’t a sprint, but more of a marathon. One or two occasional concerts won’t damage your ears; however, if you are exposed to ear-splitting noises consistently, you may develop deafness or become hard of hearing. If a child lives near construction sites all their life, they may develop attention problems, stress, and memory impairments. Noise doesn’t only harm humans, it also can cause harm to animals. Loud noises may cause blue jays to have fewer chicks or make caterpillars’ hearts beat faster. Animals that depend on echolocation such as bats and dolphins can get thrown off or lost as a result of loud artificial noises. Animals depend on noises to protect themselves and to hunt. Migratory birds may travel routes with less noise, thus changing where they nest and ultimately wreaking havoc on ecosystems. Unfortunately, there are very few attempts currently to address this devastating impact of human-generated noise.
Soil pollution is when there are harmful substances in the soil. These substances can be natural or man-made. Toxins that exist naturally include perchlorate, which appears in the arid Atacama Desert of Chile. Perchlorate only developed because the landscape was so arid. Natural elements such as copper, nickel, zinc, mercury, arsenic and others can also pose harm to the soil. However, most pollutants are man-made chemicals such as pesticides, fertilizers, radioactive waste, and other improperly disposed of materials. If there are plants such as tomatoes or cucumbers growing on polluted soil, the plants are likely to become polluted because the plants absorb chemicals from the soil. Those who consume these now toxic plants can experience headaches, nausea, skin rashes, fatigue, and eye irritation. More severe effects are neuromuscular blockade, kidney and liver damage, and many forms of cancer.
Soil pollution became a serious global problem when people began illegally or improperly dumping their waste into nature. With the rise of the industrial revolution, the problem began to accelerate. Pollution doesn’t just appear in the dirt immediately but over the course of years and decades of mismanaging waste that results in toxic soil. A recent example was the pollution caused by factories that poisoned public waterways in Flint, Michigan.
Plastic, light, noise and soil pollution all have one thing in common: human mismanagement. They all became serious issues at the same time, during the Industrial Revolution and the growth of cities. While regulations have begun to make a difference in the impact of plastic and soil pollution, light and noise are the new frontiers of environmental destruction that we can begin to address.
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