Industrial waste from factories is inevitable. Và the ways factories manage that waste affect the surrounding environment, as well as human health. If not properly disposed of, industrial waste can contaminate soil, air, và water.
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But there are points throughout a factory’s lifespan, và its entire production process, where changes can be made khổng lồ reduce the pollution they produce và ensure proper precautions are in place to protect the environment around them.
1. Building Factories in the Right Place
The best way khổng lồ reduce pollution in important ecosystems is khổng lồ keep them from harm’s way in the first place. When new industrial sites are being built, it is important lớn factor in location & the potential impact the site would have on the surrounding environment. Characteristics such as climate and topography significantly affect how pollutants spread, & these factors also need to be considered. As we continue khổng lồ build factories & industrial sites, making smart decisions about their locations can help reduce the impacts of the inevitable waste that comes from the factory.
2. Powering Factories with Renewable Energy
Energy consumption is one of the main contributors to factory air pollution. Therefore, factories that require less energy to operate produce less air pollution. A large-scale shift to lớn using renewable energy sources lớn power factories would result in less pollution over time & could also save factories money in the long run. But the initial investment in greener energy sources is often a hurdle that prevents many factories from making the switch lớn renewables, even if it makes financial and environmental sense when looking at the bigger picture.
3. Analyzing Factory Waste
Pollution is tied to waste that is created during the production process. But before factories can effectively work on decreasing waste, they need an accurate picture of the waste at hand. By analyzing their waste output, factories can determine the amounts of different types of waste lượt thích food waste, chemical waste, glass, paper, & other elements. Once they have a clear picture of where they are making waste, it’s much easier to lớn make processes more efficient by upgrading equipment, reorganizing inventory, and establishing recycling systems for reusing materials at various stages of production.
4. Proper Treatment of Factory Waste
The proper treatment of waste at the end of the production process is key to reducing factory pollution. Waste treatment is defined as the practice of changing the properties of industrial hazardous waste and making it less harmful. These changes can be physical, chemical, or biological. Physical treatments are processes that may change the shape or kích thước of the waste. In contrast, chemical treatments use chemicals to lớn alter the composition of the waste, và biological treatments use organisms to break down waste components into simpler organic matter and biomass. Treating waste in these ways before it leaves the facility allows factories to lớn reduce the volume và toxicity of their waste before disposal.
5. Factories Must Run Environmental Impact Assessments
Companies should perform regular environmental impact assessments within their factories to lớn identify potential harmful impacts their waste may have on the natural ecosystem. If harmful impacts are discovered in this assessment, it is the company’s responsibility lớn take the necessary actions required lớn address the problem, và correct any negative consequences that have developed.
6. Laws and Enforcement Can Help Prevent Factory Waste
In addition khổng lồ implementing these regulations, it is equally important for governmental agencies lớn take firm action against industries that vì not follow pollution protocols và offer significant rewards for companies that operate within guidelines.
Image credits: Factory (The Ruwais Refinery by Rickmaj is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0); Windmills và solar panels (Renewable Energy on the Grid by Kenueone is licensed under CC0 1.0); Recycling facility (African Waste Management Experts Visit Rwanda E-Waste Recycling Facility – Rwanda Green Fund Investment by Rwanda Green Fund is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0); Man treating waste (African Waste Management Experts Visit Rwanda E-Waste Recycling Facility – Rwanda Green Fund Investment by Rwanda Green Fund is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0); Men in facility (Acting Secretary Wolf Tours Marine Terminal Facility (8) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security); Gavel và books (Court Gavel – Judge’s Gavel – Courtroom by wp paarz is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)
Urban trees can help cut air pollution from new york to Beijing, but which trees bởi vì the best job? Future Planet weighs up the options.Cities usually come at the price of green space. Since prehistoric times, humans have busily cleared forests lớn make way for settlements. But increasingly, greenery has been edging its way back into modern urban landscapes, & for good reason. Vegetation helps cities become better habitats for wildlife và for people, and it helps to lớn make đô thị air safer.
Trees have a remarkable range of traits that can help reduce urban air pollution, & cities around the world are looking to harness them. In January 2019, the mayor of London announced that 7,000 trees would be planted before the over of the following year. Meanwhile, China’s Hebei Province, trang chủ to Beijing, has been working on a “green necklace” of plants that could help reduce pollution from factories that surround the capital. And Paris is planning an urban forest that will encompass its most iconic landmarks in an effort to adapt khổng lồ climate change, & also improve the city’s air quality.
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While trees are generally effective at reducing air pollution, it isn’t as simple as the more trees you have in an urban space, the better the air will be. Some trees are markedly more effective at filtering pollutants from the air than others. Lớn make the most difference in air chất lượng in a street or city, it has khổng lồ be the right tree for the job.
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And, of course, trees are only a way to filter pollution; better is to reduce emissions of pollutants in the first place, notes David Nowak, a senior scientist at the US Forest Service who has been studying plants’ contribution khổng lồ air chất lượng for 30 years. “But trees can be of great help,” he says.
Trees can improve air chất lượng in direct and indirect ways. Indirectly, they can help by shading surfaces and reducing temperatures. If buildings are shaded by trees, it reduces the need for conventional air conditioning, and the emissions of greenhouse gases that come with it. Plus, lower temperatures decrease risk of harmful pollutants lượt thích ground level ozone that commonly spike on hot days in urban areas.
But trees also play a vital role in directly removing pollutants from the air. Plants are often seen as the “lungs” of an ecosystem because they absorb carbon dioxide và emit oxygen, says Rita Baraldi, a plant physiologist at the Institute of Bioeconomy of the Italian National Research Council. But they also act as an ecosystems “liver” too, filtering atmospheric pollutants lượt thích sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide through their leaves.
Trees are particularly effective at removing particulate matter (PM), Nowak adds. PM comes in the khung of tiny particles of organic chemicals, acids, metals và dust, emitted from fossil-fuel-burning vehicles and factories, as well as construction sites. The largest of these particles measure up khổng lồ 10 micrometers across (known as PM10s), which is around a fifth of the width of a human hair. Then there are PM2.5s, measuring 2.5 micrometres across, and even smaller nanoparticle pollution.
Fine particulate matter can easily penetrate into human respiratory system, causing lung & cardiovascular diseases or exacerbating respiratory illness. It has also been linked to lớn inflammation & heart disease. By one estimate, 8.9 million deaths a year globally could be attributable to lớn exposure khổng lồ outdoor fine particulate matter.
Clearing the air
From an urban planning perspective, plants act as a readily available set of PM purifiers. “Trees can help reduce PM in two main ways,” says Prashant Kumar, the founding director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research at the University of Surrey.
The first one is dispersion – by crashing into trees & plants, concentrated clouds of minuscule particles get dispersed và so diluted by the air, decreasing the risk of inhalation by humans. The second one is deposition. PM can easily get trapped in the waxy, hairy leaves of trees and shrubs. When it rains, most of these particles are washed away by water into drains.
“The extent to lớn which each species performs such filtering activity depends mostly on canopy size, leaf kích cỡ and leaf structure,” says Baraldi. Bigger canopies can trap more particles than smaller ones, and larger leaves can trap more pollutants than small ones. When it comes to lớn leaf type, it is those with rough, rugged & hairy surfaces that act as the “best filters” for PM.
Recent research suggests that tiny hairs on plant leaves in particular may play a big role in trapping the solid và liquid particles that trang điểm PM. In one recent study, Barbara Maher & colleagues at the University of Lancaster tested the ability of nine tree species khổng lồ capture PM in wind-tunnel experiments. Silver birch, yew và elder trees were the most effective at capturing particles, and it was the hairs of their leaves that contributed to reduction rates of 79%, 71% và 70% respectively. In contrast, nettles emerged as the least useful of the species studied, though they still captured a respectable 32%.
Alpine air
Conifers, lượt thích pines and cypresses, are also good natural purifiers. In 2015, Jun Yang, an urban ecologist at the Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, in Beijing, ranked the most frequently occurring species in cities based on their PM 2.5 absorption capacity. The ranking also took into trương mục species’ ability khổng lồ survive in urban contexts, & any negative impact on air quality, such as the production of allergens, & of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – a phối of substances that can interact with gases emitted by vehicles, lượt thích nitrogen dioxide. In the presence of sunlight, these reactions can contribute lớn ground-level ozone, which is harmful khổng lồ human health. The effects can be considerable; when a heatwave hit Berlin in 2006, the ozone created by the interaction of plants’ VOCs & vehicles’ pollutants resulted in sudden decreases in air quality.
To Yang’s surprise, his ranking system showed that the most widespread species of trees were not the best pollution filters. “Of the 10 most recurring species, only the London plane, silver maple and honey locust ranked above average,” he says. It was conifers, such as pines & cypresses, that were the best pollution filters. Planting conifers, Yang concluded, would make most sense in polluted cities like Beijing khổng lồ reduce PM2.5s. The Chinese capital routinely reports PM levels above 125 micrograms per cubic meter, more than 10 times greater than World Health Organization recommended threshold of 10 micrograms per cubic meter.
