Sunday, February 18

Environmental Pollution >>>>>>>>>

The act of releasing any solid, liquid or gaseous substance in such a large concentration that it tends to be injurious to environment and hazardous to the environmental components is termed as Environmental Pollution.

The environmental pollution is the price we are paying for modern civilization and material progress. It literally means making foul, filthy, and dirty. Environmental Pollution is our enemy numero uno today. There is an all-round pollution everywhere in the atmosphere, on the lands, and in the seas. The air around us is polluted by the smoke and various gases puffed out by vehicles and factories and by the tremendous use of modern chemicals.

Basically the environmental pollution is of three types;
1) Air Pollution
2) Water Pollution
3) Noise Pollution
Radiation pollution & Soil pollution are the other types of pollution which are picking up their pace in recent years. But out of all these Air pollution is the most hazardous. It is a serious problem in industrialized & congested cities. Heavy traffic and use of modern chemical fertilizers pollute the air and posses terrible health hazards. Pollutants like HF, H2S, and SO2 even if present in small amounts in air are dangerous and result in dreadful diseases like respiratory paralysis, bronchitis, fibrosis, cardiac and pulmonary disorders. The tragedy that occurred on Dec 3rd , 1984 due to leakage of Methyl isocynade affected lakhs of innoscent residents very badly. Among our cities which are dangerously polluted each day may be mentioned Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, New Delhi, and Ahmedabad. These are on the brink of total misfortune resulting from upsetting the balance between living beings and their surroundings. Water bodies like river and lakes are also the victims of environmental pollution. Huge industrial and chemical wastes are dumped into them from factories killing the flora and fauna. As a result the polluted water destroys agricultural products. It corrupts the soil and makes it useless.

Noise pollution is termed as a silent killer. In recent years, noise pollution has increased to a great extent. Generally hearing capacity of human beings is of 180 dB, but above 140 dB noise is undesirable by the recipient. Loud noise affects the human beings in many ways. Continuous exposure to loud noise may bring about a permanent loss of hearing. Heart beats of a person increase. Brain and lever of a person are also affected. A person may be disturbed emotionally. Plants are also affected due to loud noise. The rate of process of photosynthesis declines. Household appliances , loudly played radios & TV’s , vehicles and small industries add to increasing noise pollution. But of all pollutions noise pollution is the easiest one to control, but the people must be aware of it. So a great environmentalist says that “ Let silence whisper peace into your ears “ . Like noise pollution , Radiation pollution is also dangerous . Nuclear activities and nuclear tests lead to radiation pollution. The radioactive substances and their by –products remain in the atmosphere for a long period of time and pollute the air . These pollutants destroy the human chromosomes and genes and bring about permanent hereditary disorders. So radiation pollution is very dangerous.

Environmental pollution is the reason which helps in the poisoning of air and harms the ozone layer of the earth , which protects us from the harmful ultraviolet radiations of the sun. If the ozone layer is destroyed mankind will perish , from the harmful radiations. So we must fight this evil with all our might.

But although , environmental pollution seems to be dangerous and difficult to control it is in our own hands to fight this evil. So we must take effective and efficient steps to control it. The vehicular and factory smoke should be reduced by modern equipments like gas absorbers , wet collectors , bag filters , oxygen furnaces etc. Some efficient method of disposing of garbage which is pilling up at an alarming rate in many parts of the cities should be developed . The dumping of chemical wastes of factories into the rivers and seas should be stopped. We should plant more trees , protect forests and bring about more gardens and open spaces . This is because trees act as bio-monitor for the problem of environmental pollution . Hence , it is said that

The enemy’s enemy is a friend , pollution is our enemy , trees are our friend which eliminate it.

Many institutions and organizations in our country and abroad should propagate important values relating to environmental pollution . Recycling as a means of controlling environmental pollution should be brought into use on a large scale. Interestingly ways of recycling cans, newspapers, glass bottles, rubber and other articles of daily use should be found out.

Due to all these sorts of pollution taking place in the entire world mankind is on the verge of extinction. So the sooner we take effective steps against this act , the better it is for the welfare of mankind.

Sunday, February 11

Solid Waste Management :

Ours is an age of science and around us are the ‘fairy tales of progress in the long march ‘of time. Today our life depends upon innumerable things which come in this world by the sincere efforts of our fellow scientists. In one word they can be termed as the wonders in today’s world. Because of such things tomorrows world promises to be a better place for man to live. However this situation is rapidly changing its form & on the contrary making life difficult. Let me explain why I think so.

Industrialization has increased which is causing rise of slums, filth, and squalor. Our moral and spiritual progress has failed. Thus the filth, dirt, garbage, waste are the price we are paying for modern civilization and material progress. The useless and unwanted materials which lie unused and unproductive are causing harm to our environment, which is on the verge of ecological disaster. Hence sooner or later it is important to take effective steps to avert this tragedy for the betterment of mankind .It can be done by proper management of these substances.

Material that is discarded because it has served its purpose or is no longer useful is called solid waste. Improper disposal of municipal solid waste can create unsanitary conditions, and this condition in turn can lead to pollution of environment and to outbreaks of vector-borne diseases. The sources of solid waste include residential, commercial, institutional and industrial activities. It includes decomposable food waste, dry material such as glass, paper, wood, cloth, bulky items such as old refrigerators, couches, large trees, rubber & plastic items, waste from nuclear reactors etc.

The tasks of collecting, treating and disposing of solid waste are technically challenging.
They also pose wide variety of administrative, economic and social problems that must be managed and solved. It is labor intensive activity, accounting for approx. three quarters of total cost of solid waste management. Public employees are often assigned to the task, but private companies like to do work under contract to the municipality. The task of selecting an optimal collection also plays an important part. Nowadays many communities have started conducting source separation & recycling programmers near the drop off centers started by them.

The ways of treatment and proper management of the solid waste are discussed below

Plastic: Plastics account for almost 10 % by weight of the content of municipal garbage. Plastic containers and other household products are increasingly recycled and for that they are sorted at the source before processing. Various thermoplastics may be remolded and reformed into new products. The most widely recycled types are the polythene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, and polypropylene. Thermoplastics may be remolded and reformed into new products. Egg: Polyurethane and epoxy resins are ground or shredded for use as fillers or insulating materials. So called bio degradable plastics, include starches that degrade upon exposure to sunlight.

Paper and other cellulose products: One of the most readily available materials for recycling is paper. The stream of waste paper consists principally of newspaper; office, copying and writing paper; computer paper; colored paper; paper tissues and towels; boxboard (used for paper bags). These papers must be sorted before recycling. Newsprint and cardboard can be repulsed to make same material, while other types of scrap paper are recycled for use in low quality papers such as boxboard, tissues, and towels. Paper intended for printing grade products must be dinked (often using caustic soda) after pulping; for some uses the stock is bleached before pressing into sheets. Smaller amounts of recycled paper are made into cellulose insulation and other building products.
Bark, wood chips and lignin from saw mils, pulp mills, and paper mills are returned to soil as soil conditioners and fertilizers. The craft process of paper making produces a variety of liquid wastes that are sources of such valuable chemicals as turpentine, methyl alcohol, acetone, ethyl alcohol, and diethyl supplied. Sludge’s from pulp & paper manufacture and phosphate lime from fertilizer manufacture can be made into gypsum wallboard.

Rubber: Rubber is also one of the most polluting materials. Though much of the used rubber was formerly burned, burning has been greatly curtailed to prevent air pollution.
Internal recycling is common in most rubber plants; the reprocessed rubber can be used wherever premium grade rubber is not needed. The destructive distillation of scrap rubber products may, however, allow the reclamation of valuable chemicals. External recycling has proved a problem over the years; the cost of recycling old or worn out tires and other such material has far exceeded the value of the reclaimed material.

Glass: Glass makes up about 6 % by weight of the material in municipal waste streams.
Glass is an easily salvageable material, but one that is difficult to recover economically. Though enormous numbers of glass containers are used throughout the world, much of this glass is still not recycled, because the raw material are so inexpensive that there is scant economic motive to reuse them.
Another problem is that waste glass must be separated by color (i.e. clear, green, and brown) before it can be reused to make new glass containers. Despite these difficulties, anywhere from 35 to 90 % cullet ( broken or refused ) is currently used in glass production.

Animal and Fish wastes : The large increase in livestock and poultry production, has created a problem of disposing of animal wastes.
Processing of animal wastes for use as a component of animal feeds has been under intensive study, along with research on use of wastes for large scale composting and on possible dehydration of wastes for use as garden fertilizer. The waste from commercial fisheries and processing plants, including parts of fish & shell fish, contains valuable oils and large amounts of protein. Methods have been developed for converting these proteins into animal food and for the production of a paraffin fuel oil from animal wastes.

Ferrous Metals: These can be managed by internal as well as external methods. Metal cuttings or imperfect products are recycled by remolding, recasting, and redrawing entirely within steel mills. This process is cheaper than producing new metal from the basic ore.
Byproducts from the coke oven include organic compounds, hydrogen supplied, ammonia, which are purified and sold. Ammonia as an aqueous solution or combination with sulphuric acid which forms Ammonium sulphate is sold as fertilizer.
External recycling includes making of feed to electric arc and basic oxygen furnaces, from scrap steel.
One of the largest source of scrap steel is reprocessing of old automobile bodies, The average junked automobile contains about 62 % iron and steel , 28 % non ferrous metals and 10 % rubber, plastic, and textiles.
Parts such as carburetors and electrical components can be rebuilt and resold and the engine block is removed and melted down for recasting.
Automobile body is then crushed and flattened ; and then shredded to small pieces by hammer mills . Ferrous metals are then separated by powerful magnets and only the plastics , textiles & rubber are not reused . Some procedures are applied to washing machines , refrigerators , and other large steel or iron items.

Other reuse : Once glass , plastics , and metals have been removed , what remains is essentially organic waste . This waste can be biologically decomposed and turned into humus , which is useful soil conditioner . Kitchen scraps , when decomposed with leaves and grass in a compost mound , make an especially useful soil amendment , which helps to reduce the amount of material contributed by households to landfills.


Thus if the solid wastes are properly managed it helps to protect human health and safeguard environmental quality . Proper waste treatment and disposal practices may thus prevent degradation of ecosystems and neighbourhoods.
So it is purely in our hands to save this environment and to lead a healthy life .


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Saturday, February 3

Role of Youth in Controlling “HIV/AIDS “


Disease is a sickness of body or mind . It can be a mild as a soar throat or as serious as cancer or a heart attack . It can strike almost any part of the body and affect a persons mental and emotional health . There are different kinds of diseases like infectious, fungal, viral etc . Cancer , Tuberculosis , Brain Tumor , AIDS , etc are some of the diseases which are really deadly and life threatening . But among them AIDS is the most dangerous and threatening .

AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome . It is final, life threatening stage of infection with human immune deficiency virus {HIV}. AIDS refers to fact that HIV severely damages the immune system, the body, which is the most important defense against disease . Cases of AIDS were first identified in 1981 in America and since then millions of AIDS cases have been diagnosed world wide .
AIDS is basically caused by two viruses that belong to a group called retro viruses . These viruses infect certain WBC’S including T helper cells & macrophages which play keyrole in the immune system . Basically , people who have been infected with HIV virus have to go through three stages of infection , which are ;

1] acute retroviral stage & asymptomatic period
2] symptomatic HIV infection
3] AIDS

Length of time any person stays in each stage varies greatly & depends upon many factors including medical treatment . AIDS can be transmitted during all the stages of infection , even when no symptom occurs . The acute retroviral stage gets flulike illness & usually goes away without any treatment . Second stage however may show mild or severe symptoms like rashes and dental illness , which may last from few months to many years . The progressive breakdown of immune system eventually leads to death usually within few years .

If compared to other diseases like malaria, TB, pneumonia, AIDS is relatively a new disease that involves sex and drugs and mainly affects young adults . For this reason , it has created a widespread social concern. Some efforts to deal with AIDS or to prevent HIV transmission have provoked controversy . Seeing the severity of this disease to prevent its transmission, care centres nowadays tell doctors , dentists and other workers to wear gloves, masks, and other protective clothing during many examination. However even if such safe effective steps & other medical methods against HIV are taken , AIDS cases would still occur for many years. This is because millions of individuals in the youth are already infected with the disease . This worldwide problem has really put a challenge in front of scientists who are attempting to develop a vaccine to boost the immune system of individuals infected with HIV .

The most important factor in transmission of HIV is the sexual contact between the youths . Due to excitement which is very common in todays youth , they have sexual contact with a number of partners . Thus if a youth has sexual contact with anyone who is or who might be infected with the virus he transmits it . Such stuff should be avoided . The most important and effective preventive strategy is to refrain from all the sexual intimacy or to restrict sexual intimacy to one uninfected person,who in turn has no other sexual partner . Most effective strategy to stay away from HIV/AIDS is to use condoms everytime during intercourse with a person who is infected with HIV or whose infection ststus is unknown . Young individuals can significantly reduce the risk of infection by using such protective measures during sex . They can also avoid it by not having sex with prostitutes , who have a number of sex partners & other high risk patients . But even then youth begin sexual activity at an early age , with many sex partners or have sex with prostitutes , without using condoms , and then face the consequences . Now what can one do with such individuals ??

Education to such youths about AIDS , has hence become the chief approach to prevent infection . Some education institutions have even set up health clnics that give knowledge about use of condoms , to its students . However at many places such type of classroom discussion of condom use has been opposed . This is because , they feel it implies acceptance of sexual intimacy of marriage . Even the local and national government has understood the importance of giving education about AIDS and hence they have started public health clinics . These clinics offer counseling & HIV antibody testing to individuals who have symptoms or are at the risk of infection . Such health centres also provide funds for AIDS education , treatment & confidentially notify the infected persons sexual or needle sharing partners of their risk . Once notified , they too can receive preventive counseling tests and medical service . Todays youth also have the advantage of public awareness programmes started by international organizations like the RED CROSS ,which work to increase awareness of AIDS among young people . The youth should take all possible advantage of such programmes , to avoid that deadly menace , AIDS . By conducting such programmes , surely greater awareness can be created .

Preventing drug abuse and educating young drug users about AIDS are important approaches to control HIV infection . Drug users share needles , syringes , towels , razors & other equipments . AZT reduces risk of transmission from an infected mother to her foetus or baby . Hence nowdays efforts are being made to educate drug users about health and sex education as well as needle & syringe exchange programmes . However these types of programmes have been criticized as seeming to imply acceptance of drug use . Now a days even stars and celebrities have helped raise public consciousness of AIDS . Many well known people have participated in education and fund raising efforts . The epidemic also has gained attention as a result of several well known people , including tennis star Arthur Ashe , ballet dancer Rudolf Nareyev becoming infected with HIV or dying from AIDS . Due to such awareness programmes , these days many individuals were a red ribbon to show support for people with AIDS .

Some individuals infected with HIV have been injustly lost or denied education & jobs . To prevent such things , government has made laws . Preventing discrimination against AIDS patients is important not only for moral reasons but also to maintain public health . When people are’nt afraid of discrimination they are more likely to seek earlier couselling and to be tested for HIV infection. This leads to less risky behaviour & earlier diagnose .

Thus if youth can understand the menace of AIDS clearly & can take steps to prevent its transmission , this evil can surely be wiped out of this world .

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