Environmental pollution

“ This Law is enacted for the purposes of protecting and improving the ecological environment, preventing and controlling environmental pollution by solid wastes, safeguarding public health, ensuring ecological safety, advancing the ecological conservation and environmental protection, and promoting the sustainable development of the economy and society. ”

“ Environmental pollution remains grave, and in particular, some areas are frequently hit by heavy smog. We need to further strengthen our steps to combat pollution. There are also many problems causing public concern in housing, education, healthcare, elderly care, food and drug safety, and income distribution. ”

“ Although pollution may be the most prominent and immediately pressing environmental concern, it is only one facet of the many-sided environmental problem. It is a highly visible, sometimes dangerous sign of environmental deterioration. Pollution occurs when materials accumulate where they are not wanted. Overburdened natural processes cannot quickly adjust to the heavy load of materials which man, or sometimes nature, adds to them. Pollution threatens natural systems, human health, and aesthetic sensibilities; it often represents valuable resources out of place. ”

“ Indeed, today we know that the health of aquatic ecosystems must be examined holistically, to determine how various forms of human activity affect water quality. We know that we must protect entire watersheds that feed into our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. We also recognize that, by preventing pollution at the source, we can protect watersheds and avoid the high economic and environmental costs of treating wastes and restoring ecosystems after pollution has already occurred. Moreover, experience has shown us that our actions must be based on sound science. ”

“ In dealing with industrial pollution and resource degradation, it is essential that industry, government, and the public have clear benchmarks. Where the workforce and financial resources permit, national governments should establish clear environmental goals and enforce environmental laws, regulations, incentives, and standards on industrial enterprises. In formulating such policies, they should give priority to public health problems associated with industrial pollution and hazardous wastes. ”

“ Environment—current issues: air pollution, especially in urban areas, from vehicle emissions, refinery operations, and industrial effluents; deforestation; overgrazing; desertification; oil pollution in the Persian Gulf; inadequate supplies of potable water
Environment—international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation
People
Population: 65,179,752 (July 1999 est.) ”

“ In the light of this and the growth trends projected through the next century, it is evident that measures to reduce, control, and prevent industrial pollution will need to be greatly strengthened. If they are not, Pollution damage to human health could become intolerable in certain cities and threats to property and ecosystems will continue to grow. Fortunately, the past two decades of environmental action have provided governments and industry with the policy experience and the technological means to achieve more sustainable patterns of industrial development. ”

“ The development that generates economic benefits in a town upstream may create pollution and loss of recreation in a town downstream.
Sometimes people persist in actions which cause environmental damage because they do not know that they are causing it. Construction of dams, extensive paving of land surfaces, and filling of estuaries for industrial development have in many cases been carried out with incomplete or wrong information about the extent of the impact on the environment. ”

“ The economic costs of pollution are massive - billions of dollars annually. Paint deteriorates faster, cleaning bills are higher, and air filtering systems become necessary. Direct costs to city dwellers can be measured in additional household maintenance, cleaning, and medical bills. Air pollution causes the housewife to do her laundry more often. The farmer's crop yield is reduced or destroyed. Water pollution prevents swimming, boating, fishing, and other recreational and commercial activities, highly valued in today's world. ”

“ We will undertake rigorous investigations on soil pollution and develop and implement category-based measures to tackle this problem. We will take comprehensive measures to improve both urban and rural environments, and promote waste sorting. We will strengthen energy conservation and environmental protection industries to ensure both environmental improvement and economic growth.
We will move forward with ecological conservation and improvement. ”

“ Natural hazards: NA Environment - current issues: toxic and hazardous waste disposal is ineffective and poses health risks; water pollution from raw sewage; limited natural fresh water resources; deforestation ”

“ The prevention and reduction of air and water pollution will remain a critical task of resource conservation. Air and water quality come under pressure from such activities as fertilizer and pesticide use. ”

“ In populous districts, in villages, towns, but also near habitations, the soil from which water is obtained must, of necessity, be impregnated with organic waste matter. If, in such a surface well, the level of the water is lowered by pumping, the zone of pollution is extended laterally in all directions. Ordinary shallow well water should always be considered "suspicious water." ”

“ We have taken great strides during the past two decades, primarily by controlling pollution from sewage treatment plants and industrial facilities. Recent advances in science and technology have enabled us to engage in more effective studies of water pollution—its causes and its effects. ”

“ The chemical industry is also one of the most dynamic sectors in most countries, including many developing ones. Yet this industry, together with its products, can have a particularly severe impact on the environment. I has given rise to a host of new problems both of product and process pollution. It continues to generate an increasingly wider rang of products and wastes whose effects, especially long-term ones, on human health and the environment are not precisely known. Major accidents have taken place, and the safety record of the industry has been challenged in recent years. ”

“ Similarly, inadequate and environmentally unsound practices for the disposal or use of solid waste have created greater amounts of air and water pollution and other problems for the environment and for health; (4) open dumping is particularly harmful to health, contaminates drinking water from underground and surface supplies, and pollutes the air and the land; (5) the placement of inadequate controls on hazardous waste management will result in substantial risks to human health and the environment ”

“ The same Republicans who are talking about preserving the environment have nominated a man who last year made the preposterous statement, and I quote, "Eighty percent of our air pollution comes from plants and trees." ”

“ Today I'm announcing new actions we're taking to protect our air, our water, and some of our most precious lands.
One of the simplest but most potent tools in our fight against pollution is public information. By requiring industries to tell communities how much they pollute the air and water, we empower citizens to fight back and create a powerful incentive for industry to pollute less. Remarkably, in the decades since the public's right-to-know about chemical releases became the law of the land, industry's toxic pollution has fallen nearly 50 percent. ”

“ Any liability to disease that may come from faulty construction of habitations is likely to spring from a polluted subsoil. Such pollution vitiates the air drawn from that soil and is a source of danger on account of the resulting impurity of the whole atmosphere within the house. ”

“ We will coordinate efforts to prevent and control air pollution in regions where it presents a problem. We will press ahead with the nationwide development and upgrading of urban sewage treatment facilities, and strengthen comprehensive efforts aimed at controlling agricultural pollution from non-point sources and at improving the water environment in river basin areas. We will step · up efforts to deal with industrial pollution at the source and conduct online monitoring of all polluting enterprises. ”

“ The determination of such pollution is a matter of great delicacy and difficulty, and can only be trusted to an expert. Waters polluted by organic matters often contain an excess of gaseous constituents, and are clear, sparkling, and palatable, presenting to the uninstructed eye no indication of impurity. ”

“ Environment - current issues: soil erosion from overgrazing and other poor farming practices; desertification; dumping of raw sewage, petroleum refining wastes, and other industrial effluents is leading to the pollution of rivers and coastal waters; Mediterranean Sea, in particular, becoming polluted from oil wastes, soil erosion, and fertilizer runoff ”

“ Conditions have improved steadily during the past century, and this trend continues. although the pace varies between and within cities. 19. In most urban areas, almost everyone is served by refuse collection today. Air quality has generally improved, with a decline in the emission of particles and sulphur oxides. Efforts to restore water quality have met with a mixed record of success because of pollution from outside of cities, notably nitrates and other fertilizers and pesticides, Many coastal areas, however, close to major sewage outlets, show considerable deterioration. ”

“ Thus atmospheric pollution, once perceived only as a local urban-industrial problem involving people's health, is now also seen as a much more complex issue encompassing buildings, ecosystems, and maybe even public health over vast regions. During transport in the atmosphere, emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides and volatile hydrocarbons are transformed into sulphuric and nitric acids, ammonium salts, and ozone. ”

“ Environment - current issues: air pollution and resulting acid rain severely affecting lakes and damaging forests; metal smelting, coal-burning utilities, and vehicle emissions impacting on agricultural and forest productivity ”

“ Urban and industrial growth are creating additional sources of pollution while placing increased demands on limited water resources. Contaminated runoff from farmlands as well as city streets is, all too often, degrading our waters and damaging ecosystems. Scientists continue to detect unacceptable levels of pollutants in many bodies of water and in the tissues of finfish and shellfish. All Americans must continue to work together to protect our water resources and the wildlife that depends on them. ”

“ The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing. ”

“ Any pride we may have in our surroundings rarely extends beyond our own four walls, or, if we possess them, our garden palings. We suffer our river to become an open sewer, our buildings to be defaced by soot, our streets to be disfigured by huge advertisement hoardings, and our atmosphere to be polluted by smoke.
If the pollution of the river and the air, and the existence of unwholesome courts and uninhabitable dwellings offended the aesthetic sense only, we might wisely leave their disappearance to the improving hand of Time. ”

“ We will work to make solid gains in the battle against pollution. We will take coordinated steps to further control multiple atmospheric pollutants and treat them through coordination among regions. We will take stronger action to treat pollution in major rivers, lakes, and bays, and sustain our progress on preventing and controlling soil pollution. ”

“ Such water, when it penetrates only to shallow wells still retains a considerable proportion of its polluting organic matter in an unoxidized condition: but when it descends through one hundred feet or upwards of porous soil or rock, the exhausted filtration to which it has been subjected in passing downwards through so great a thickness of material, and the rapid oxidation of the dissolved organic matters in a porous and aerated medium, afford a considerable guarantee that all noxious constituents have been removed.”— (Rivers Pollution Commission, 1874.) ”

“ A great portion of those proceedings having been devoted to the consideration of the pollution of rivers,—Mr. Highford Burr (of the Council of this Association) moved and carried unanimously a resolution in the following terms:—
"That as various rivers are seriously injured by liquid and solid poisonous matters, and as it is necessary for the public health and the supply of food for the people, that the pollutions should be prevented, further legislation is urgently needed." ”

“ In the poorer nations, population growth on limited land has placed pressure on the environment. In the industrialized world, patterns of production and consumption have increased pollution, begun to deplete resources, and generated hazardous substances which the earth does not naturally assimilate. ”

“ Subsoil water is liable to infiltration of solid and liquid wastes emanating from the human system, from leaky drains, sewers, or cesspools, stables, or farmyards; and even deep well water may become contaminated by reason of defects in the construction of the well.
During storage, water becomes contaminated in open reservoirs by atmospheric impurities; a growth of vegetable organisms or algæ often causes trouble, bad taste, or odor; water in open house tanks and in cisterns is also liable to pollution. ”