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Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Hazards of Industrial Pollution” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Hazards of Industrial Pollution and Demand for Clean Technologies

Much of the development being made is based on the use of increasing amount of raw materials, energy, chemicals and synthetics. The scale and complexity of our requirements for these resources have increased greatly with the rising levels of population and production. Indiscriminate industrial expansion to cater to the growing needs, without much attention being paid to its damaging effect created in its wake, pollution, and subsequently environmental degradation. Notwithstanding the role of chemicals in improving health and life expectancy, increased agricultural production, enhanced economic opportunities and the quality of life in general. The products and residues of the chemical industry pose unprecedented risks to human health and environmental quality. The Indian scenario of chemical industry sector looks grim with the industrialists often going in for outdated low efficiency processes and technologies associated with higher levels of pollution. Pesticides like DDT, 61-IC, etc. which were banned or obsolete in industrialised countries are still being produced in India. There are Gases like the II-acid plants, which find themselves under considerable economic and environmental pressure in developed nations that have been installed in India leading to increased use of chemicals in industry and agriculture and increasing inflow of toxic and hazardous substances into the human food chain and into soils, water regimes, forests and ultimately in the environment.

 While talking of the environment, we must realise that global environment is an interconnected web. The links among the natural systems of air, water, land and the living biota are often global. Disturbing any one of them can have unexpected results that are remote in both space and time.

The human race relies on the environment and therefore must manage it wisely. The prosperity of nations and individuals depends upon the quality of the environment and the availability of natural resources. Yet it is principally human activities that degrade the global environment and deplete the world’s natural resource base.

Every environmental problem has got short-term as well as long-germ impact. During the course of rapid industrialisation, we often neglect the long-term impact mainly due to inadequate knowledge. The use of chemicals, such as CFCs and DDT are few examples in this regard. Another example of overlooking the long-term effects of pollution is being manifested in the form of acid rain, mainly in the industrialised countries of Europe. It is a well known fact that most of the European coal is rich in sulphur content. As a result, high sulphur dioxide emission takes place during coal burning. To avoid its build-up in the proximity of human environment, tall stacks were designed. No doubt, these stacks were able to avoid the emission of this gas on the surface level, but the gas that went up high in the atmosphere formed acid droplets after reacting with the moisture there. Now, its impact is frightening, as more than two-thirds of the European forests are being categorised as degraded and most of the lakes are slightly acidic.

A major achievement of the Rio Summit was the realisation that environment and development are inseparable, and that industry is an important contributor to development. The need for preventive approaches to industrial pollution has now been recognised, and cleaner production is now seen as one of the control tools for industry to achieve environmental improvements while remaining competitive and profitable. The need for this approach is particularly greater in small and medium-sized enterprises whose cumulative impact on the environment is often greater than that of large scale industries.

Environmental protection today is evolving and incorporating a whole new strategy to try to avoid the waste and pollution that has all too often characterised rapid industrialisation. If you go deep into the theme of cleaner production, it is basically efficiency that counts. Applying cleaner production moans systematically addressing all phases of the production process and product life-cycle. Cleaner production encompasses energy and raw material conservation, reduction in the use of toxic substances and product and process changes that reduce the wastes and pollutants previously produced. All these options have the same aim, to reduce the risks to humans and the environment from industrial activities and consumption’, and to do so in the most cost-effective way possible.

Unfortunately, cleaner production cannot always eliminate the generation of all wastes and emissions. Thus, to protect the environment, a new complementary prevention and control approach is required, with the constant aim of reducing risk. In this new system, the first option is cleaner production. The second option is to find ways to recycle the wastes and pollutants that still exist back into the production system. The third option is to select an appropriate and environmentally sound treatment system that destroys the hazardous characteristics of the material. The fourth and last option is to restore what still remains in safest possible way.

Unfortunately, the preventive part, which is gaining momentum these days, was overlooked when thought of protecting the environment first emerged a few decades ago. Only the control methods, end-of-pipe (EOP) devices, were applied to solve the problems of polluted surface waters, intoxicated air and other results of industrial developments. EOP wastes, although less hazardous than the raw wastes, were in turn emitted to air, waterways and soil without any due consideration. Little thought was given to correcting the root cause, processes and products themselves. As a result, even after treatment systems were adopted by most of the industries, the environment continued to get more and more polluted.

Nowadays, there is a great hunt for clean technologies in every sector of industry, and whenever an economically viable and suitable technology is evolved, most of the industries take keen interest in that technology. Recycling of condensed water in sugar industries, bio-methanation in distillery industry, caustic recovery in large pulp and paper mills and fiber recovery in small pulp and paper industry are the few technologies, which have gained popularity in the recent past and ultimately reduced the burden on environment.

Some other sectors of industries are being persuaded to adopt relatively clean technologies. The use of beneficiated thermal power plants may reduce a great amount of air pollutants and fly ash. At present, even if proper air-pollution control measures are adopted, there would still be a chance for air, water and soil pollution through fly ash. To produce 54,000 MW of electricity, the thermal power plants in the country consume as much as 66 per cent of total coal utilised in the country.

It is true that industrialisation has caused severe environmental degradation, but the link between the number of industries and pollution load, which was almost linear in the past decade, is now parabolic. Previously, pollution control was not considered by industrialists at the designing and financing phase. On the contrary, these days pollution control and environmental protection have become an integral part of the design of the industries, at least in the case of medium and large-scale industries. The strict enforcement of Water (Cess) Act, has taught the industrialists to conserve water. The era of economic liberalisation has increased the pace of industrialisation but impact on the environment and natural resources is now being monitored continuously. To protect the environment, our legal provisions are adequate and more strict than most of the developed countries. Many recent judgement delivered by the Supreme Court of India and some of the High Courts are ample proof of this.

To cope with the environmental hazards of rapid industrialisation, participation by the public and the NGOs is an essential factor. Due to restricted funds and manpower, it is difficult for government agencies to keep a constant watch on each and every industry. The NGOs should educate the people regarding environment and only then would the common man be able to participate in environmental protection and conservation plans.

The past few years have witnessed a steep rise in aluminium consumption. Aluminium is probably the second metal after steel in terms of importance and production. In today’s industrial civilization, aluminium is important because it serves as a basic input for a number of industries. During the production of aluminum, all sorts of pollutants are generated.

During mining, unloading of railway wagons, crushing and mixing of additives, lots of dust and particulate matters are emitted. These can lead to respiratory disorders in the workers. The process of mining itself is a great hazard to the environment. The Amarkantak hills once famous for dense forests have been bared because of the bauxite mining. The Narmada, one of the major rivers, originates from the hills and due to mining activities gets polluted at the origin point itself.

The precipitation area in the industry has caustic vapours and this affects the skin. Toxic and hazardous gases, like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and oxides of nitrogen are present in calcification area. The most dangerous areas are green anode shop, anode bake oven and pot room. The people working here always remain in the fluoride environment. It is well known that continuous exposure to fluoride leads to a disease fluorosis—in which bones and teeth are affected. The emission of fluoride in pot room depends upon the design of the pots. In our country, mostly three pot designs are used—PB, HSS and VSS. The PB pot emits 16 kg fluoride per tonne of aluminium while the rest emit 20 kg per tonne.

It is not that pollution control methods are not available at every stage. At each stage, pollution may be controlled by simple precautions. But since the one and only aim of industries is to produce more and more aluminium at any cost, they pay scarce- attention to this aspect. The NALCO, Orissa is the only plant which has adopted significant pollution control measures.

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