Contaminación Pollution Problema ambiental

1. POLLUTION
Victor Carrillo
July 29th 2011

2. Hystory
• Pollution is not a new phenomenon.
• In fact, pollution has been a problem since the
appearance of our earliest ancestors.
• Increasing human populations have opened the door
to more bacteria and disease.
• During the Middle Ages, The epidemics were directly
related to unsanitary conditions caused by human and
animal wastes, and garbage. Unsanitary conditions
provided the perfect environment for the deadly
bacteria to grow up (flourish).

3. Hystory
• By the 1800s, people began to understand that unsanitary
living conditions and water contamination contributed to
disease epidemics.
• In the mid-1850s, Chicago built the first waste water
system in the United States to treat water.
• As cities became more populated towards the end of the
19th century, industrialized cities across Europe and the
United States they had a new kind of pollution: waste
from industries and factories.
• Water and air pollution in U.S. urban areas continued to
increase into the 20th century.

4. Those Pollution event also provided the motivation to
create:
 The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
 Establish Federal and State Environmental
Protection Agencies
 Prohibits the discharge of oil into navigable
rivers and to improve waste treatment plants
 And puts limits on the things that industries can
discharge into the water.

5. In the 19th century, a combination of
smoke and fog in cities like New York
and London resulted in many deaths.
Air pollution continued to be a
significant problem up through the
middle of the 20th century.
Since then, The Clean Air Act of 1990
puts limits on the discharge of air
pollutants from industrial facilities and
motor vehicles, and addresses acid rain
and ozone depletion.

6. Welcome

7. Extremely contaminated water
and air are much less common
today than 50 years ago.
Nevertheless, some of today's
experts are worried about the
possible risks of continuous low-
level exposure to pollutants, and
particularly to nonpoint source
pollutants

8. HOW TO HELP?

9. Prevention
The Environmental Protection
Agency established an Office of
Pollution Prevention to develop
and coordinate a pollution
impediment strategy, and develops
source reduction models.

10. • To reduce risks to human
health and the
environment
1
• Reuse
2
• Recycling (plastic, metal,
paper, electronics and
water)
3
Pollution prevention is similar to say:
“source reduction,”

11. The last resort is:
• Safe disposal of
waste residues

12. Source reduction as any practice
which —
• 1. Reduces the amount of any hazardous
substance, pollutant, or contaminant comes
from any waste stream or other way emission
and the garbage into the environment prior to
recycling, treatment, or disposal; and
• 2. Reduces the hazards to public health and the
environment associated with emission of
pollutants or contaminants.

13. Air pollution leads to
cardiovascular and
respiratory disease.
How does it affect you?
Unregulated discharges
from point sources can
result in water
population and unsafe
drinking water.
And can restrict
activities like fishing and
swimming, because
they can be toxic to
people and wildlife.

14. Resources
• < Markham, A. 1994. A Brief History of Pollution. New York: St.
Martin's Press. 162 pp. >
<hyperlink here>
• < Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. 2005.
Donora Smog Kills 20. 4. ^American Meteorological Society. 1999.
History of the Clean Air Act.>
• <www.eoearth.org/article/Actions_to_Reduce_the_Health_Impac
ts_of_Air_Pollution?topic=49544>
• This slide deck and related resources:
<http://www.eoearth.org/article/Pollution:_a_brief_history>

15. QUESTIONS?

16. APPENDIX