Month: June 2020

#3: Why we need a Pollution Revolution

madeleineshutlerThe Problem

It is very easy for us to shrug off our role in contributing pollutants into human environments, especially if those environmental costs are being hidden under our noses. However, even if we do not want to believe in the impacts of pollution issues, we may not have much choice. Especially not if our own lives or the lives of our loved ones are threatened as well. Here are several reasons why it is so important to address Environmental Pollution. 

 

1. It Impacts our Health  

 

  Source: Fred Rivett

 

Environmental pollution can have a direct effect on humans through physical contact or direct inhalation of toxins and pollutants. Examples of the latter include China’s smog and South Korea’s fine dust pollution that residents deal with almost daily. Another prominent example is the annual South East Asian Haze, a transnational air pollution crisis that affects people in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and so on. In the 2013 SEA Haze event, the PM2.5 concentration in Singapore at its highest was equivalent to passively smoking 150 cigarettes (Van der Zee et al., 2016). Such direct exposure to the pollutants can impact human health greatly, causing short term respiratory illnesses or gastro-intestinal and skin related conditions. In the long term, it can lower our immune systems and increase our risk of contracting cardio-vascular and respiratory illnesses. Notably, Xiao Wu et al (2020) found that previous exposure to PM2.5 was associated with “an 8% increase in the COVID-19 death rate), highlighting that pollution can indeed have unexpected and long term impacts on our health. 

 

However, exposure to toxins and chemicals can also be in a more insidious and unexpected form – through our food and water, the very essentials that are supposed to maintain and improve our health. The pollution transfer continuum and bioaccumulation are two concepts that explain why this impact occurs. 

 

The Pollution Transfer Continuum is a timeline of pollution from source to sink, highlighting the overall large and complex reach and impact it can have. It is based on a study on The Phosphorus Transfer Continuum by (Haygarth et al., 2005; Withers and Haygarth, 2007) and is outlined in the figure below. 

 

The Pollution Transfer Continuum

 

An important takeaway from this continuum is that pollutants can often be mobilised and transported to new environments far from their original source. In this way, they can easily enter surface or subsurface water bodies or agricultural areas, potentially contaminating water sources for locals (for example, read more on India’s Arsenic Groundwater issue) or entering the food chain through the body of organisms that are exposed to the pollutants (through the water, soil or their own contaminated food supply). Bioaccumulation can then occur with the gradual accumulation of the toxin in organisms along the food chain (Chojnacka & Mikulewicz, 2014), eventually appearing in higher levels when consumed by humans, with various poisonous effects. 

 

2. The Longevity and Spread of Pollutants 

The chemistry and original purpose of pollutants often result in them having long half-lives, meaning they can exist in the environment for long periods of time. This entails that new human activity could catalyse a string of events that disrupts the natural chemical balance, leading to the release or chemical transformation of the once buried or neutral pollutants. This is particularly a problem in the Arctic (Morello, 2011), where global warming is triggering the release of toxins once trapped in its ice and snow. 

 

An added layer to such issues, is that the pollutants can also travel long distances, far from its original source, potentially turning into transboundary crises that are complex and difficult to navigate. Air pollution, as seen in the previous example of the South East Asia Haze event, can rapidly spread throughout a whole region, and aquatic pollution can become a geopolitical issue, with disproportionate effects on upstream and downstream countries should a river and watershed cross national boundaries (for example, see the Mekong River’s transboundary heavy metal pollution). 

 

3. It Exacerbates Existing Problems 

As mentioned above, environmental pollution can very easily heighten geopolitical tensions in the case of transboundary pollution. Furthermore, in recent years, the disproportionate pattern of waste and in turn pollution, has become prominent in activism movements. Statistics and case studies have shown that the richest countries and people in the world contribute the most to emissions and waste and yet the poorest experience the effects of such waste:

 

Source: The Guardian

 

  • E-waste is often exported from developed countries, dumped and burned in less developed countries such as Africa and India (Minter, 2016). 
  • Pollution from transnational corporation-run factories in less developed countries are dumped into local rivers, contaminating rural water and food supplies.
  • Environmental Racism jarringly highlights how the poor, rural and discriminated are targeted for waste and pollutant dumping sites – 70% of these in America are built near low-income and African American neighbourhoods (Bergman, 2019)  In Canada, indigenous communities are protesting against the TransMountain pipeline which would cut across and potentially pollute indigenous lands (Cecco, 2019). 

 

These are just a few of the reasons that make environmental pollution such a pressing and significant area of concern and as such, warrants even greater governmental, private enterprise and social action to prevent and counter it.  

 

Author: Madeleine Shutler

 

References 

Bergman, M. (2019, March 08). ‘They chose us because we were rural and poor’: When environmental racism and climate change collide. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/08/climate-changed-racism-environment-south 

Cecco, L. (2019, January 11). Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada’s disputed right to use indigenous land. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/canada-pipeline-indigenous-trudeau-treaty 

Chakraborti, D., Singh, S. K., Rahman, M. M., Dutta, R. N., Mukherjee, S. C., Pati, S., & Kar, P. B. (2018). Groundwater Arsenic Contamination in the Ganga River Basin: A Future Health Danger. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(2), 180. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15020180

Chojnacka, K., & Mikulewicz, M. (2014). Bioaccumulation. Encyclopedia of Toxicology, 3rd ser., 456-460. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-386454-3.01039-3

Forber, Kirsty & Withers, Paul & Ockenden, Mary & Haygarth, P.. (2018). The Phosphorus Transfer Continuum: A Framework for Exploring Effects of Climate Change. ael. 3. 10.2134/ael2018.06.0036.  

Fu, Kaidao & Su, Bin & He, Daming & Lu, XiXi & Song, Jingyi & Huang, Jiangcheng. (2012). Pollution assessment of heavy metals along the Mekong River and dam effects. Journal of Geographical Sciences. 22. 10.1007/s11442-012-0969-3. 

Minter, A. (2016, January 13). The Burning Truth Behind an E-Waste Dump in Africa. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-behind-e-waste-dump-africa-180957597/

Morello, L. (2011, July 25). Climate Change Remobilizes Long Buried Pollution as Arctic Ice Melts. Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-remobilizes-buried-pollution-as-arctic-ice-melts/

The Guardian. (2017, July 04). Is inequality bad for the environment? Retrieved June 28, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jul/04/is-inequality-bad-for-the-environment 

Van der Zee, S., Fischer, P., & Hoek, G. (2016.). Air pollution in perspective: Health risks of air pollution expressed in equivalent numbers of passively smoked cigarettes. Elsevier, 148, 475-483. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2016.04.001 

Xiao Wu, Nethery, R. C., Sabath, M., Braun, D., & Dominici, F. (2020). Exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: A nationwide cross-sectional study.

#2: A Wake-Up Call

madeleineshutlerThe Problem

The Hidden Pollution in our Daily Lives

The word pollution stems from the Latin word pollutionem, meaning “to desecrate, to defile” (Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). In today’s globalised and fast-paced world, the separation of production and consumption processes often entails that such desecration on Mother Nature and human lives pass unnoticed. Yet, pollution remains embedded in the majority of the everyday products and events we encounter. Today, we decided to take a second look at our day’s activities, to identify the hidden pollution that they may have generated. 

 

Snippets from Our Daily Routine (Circuit Breaker Edition) 

Since the start of the great Singapore Circuit Breaker (CB), we like many other Singaporeans, have found ourselves sleeping and waking up much later as compared to our pre-CB routines. Madeleine’s past habit of making a homemade breakfast has been replaced by her parents ‘dabao-ing’ lunch for her (noon being a typical wake up time for her). Today, lunch consisted of curry chicken and assorted side dishes, which she is ashamed to admit, generated a large amount of plastic trash as pictured in Image 1. 

 


Image 1 : Trash from today’s Lunch

 

Alicia’s day on the other hand, began with a parcel delivery, a product of her retail therapy phase on ‘Shopee’ (a popular shopping platform in Singapore) during the start of CB (Image 2). 

 

Image 2: Trash from Parcel Delivery 

 

Upon reflection, it was evident to us that pollution was very much embedded in such trash that we generated. Toxic leakages of chemicals into nearby water bodies or pollutants into the air follows plastic and such disposal packaging from its manufacture overseas to eventual disposal via incineration and dumping into Singapore’s Semakau landfill (The Straits Times, 2018). In this way, pollutants like microplastics can eventually end up contaminating our water supply and food chains or end up in our lungs itself through direct inhalation (CIEL, n.d.). 

 

After lunch, Alicia spent the rest of the afternoon playing the video game ‘Overcooked’ (Image 3), while Madeleine similarly spent her time surfing social media and YouTube, as well as watching the online lectures for our Geography module, GE3246. On a surface level, using our phones, PC computers and laptops have become second nature to us, essential to our daily functioning during CB. However, today we stopped to think about the link between pollution and my electronic devices (Image 4).  

 

Image 3: Overcooked Video Game (Source: Steam)

Image 4: Electricity Use for Activities 

 

Singapore generates 95% of its electrical supply from natural gas (EMA, n.d.), a fuel source largely touted for its efficiency and low environmental impacts. However, is it as non-pollutive as we believe? Natural gas is most commonly produced by hydraulic fracturing, and Carpenter (2016) highlights the pollutive problems associated with it, including:

  • Groundwater contamination from the leakage of toxic wastewater containing salt and chemicals, during its transportation or disposal. 
  • The release of methane and carcinogenic pollutants such as benzene, contributing to air pollution. 
  • These impacts are implicative of the short and long term health effects on “workers and near-by residents who are exposed to air and water contaminants, radioactivity and excessive noise and light pollution” (Carpenter, 2016). 

 

Additionally, the long term impact on health from PC use is still very much up in the air. Bakó-Biró (2004) points out how this is a neglected yet prominent source of indoor pollution, with ‘stealth chemicals’ decreasing air quality, leading to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms and lower productivity. More and more, we are wondering if the multiple laptops and computers in my vicinity during CB are the culprits behind our increase in migraines and fatigue. 

Both of us then ended the day by winding down with the air conditioner switched on (Image 5). Once again, its pollutive cycle is linked to possible inefficient and improper processes during manufacture, the energy associated with its transportation and usage, and its eventual disposal should it stop working in the future. 

 

Image 5: Air conditioner Usage 

 

Such appliances highlight that we, in the comfort of our homes, may not be the ones experiencing firsthand the health and environmental impacts from the pollution generated in its life cycle. Rather, these impacts are often disproportionately felt across various communities, countries and regions, which is a significant issue within the study of environmental pollution. As such, this blog aims to uncover more well-hidden sources of pollution in day-to-day life, as well as bring about a possible revolution of lifestyle changes and solutions.

 

Author: Madeleine Shutler

 

References: 

Bakó-Biró, Z., Wargocki, P., Weschler, C. J., & Fanger, P. O. (2004). Effects of pollution from personal computers on perceived air quality, SBS symptoms and productivity in offices. Indoor air, 14(3), 178–187. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0668.2004.00218.x

Carpenter, D. O. (2016). Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas: impact on health and environment, Reviews on Environmental Health, 31(1), 47-51. Doi: https://doi-org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1515/reveh-2015-0055

CIEL. (n.d.). Plastic and Human Health: A Lifecycle Approach to Plastic Pollution. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from 

https://www.ciel.org/project-update/plastic-and-human-health-a-lifecycle-approach-to-plastic-pollution/

EMA. (n.d.). Electricity Journey. Retrieved June 25, 2020, from 

https://www.ema.gov.sg/electricity-journey.aspx 

Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Pollution (n.). Retrieved June 25, 2020, from 

https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution

The Straits Times. (2018, November 20). Watch: Where does all your rubbish go? Retrieved June 25, 2020, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/where-does-all-your-rubbish-go 

 

 

#1: Hello, we are @thepollutionrevolution

madeleineshutlerOthers

Meet the Writers 

Madeleine is a second-year Geography major at NUS. She first fell in love with Geography in Secondary One, enthralled by her teacher who ran around the classroom picking up and dropping school bags while explaining river deposition. Since then, Madeleine has picked up interests in Social and Cultural Geographies, Urban Planning and Sustainability. Like many of us, Madeleine is trying to inculcate new habits into her daily routine during Circuit Breaker, and has recently enjoyed cooking family dinners, as well as learning the art of cold brew coffee. 

 

Alicia is also a second-year Geography major at NUS. She grew to love Geography when she began to be exposed to the more human/cultural-aspect side of the subject in NUS. Also having a thorough interest in ethics, she tries hard to synthesize her Geography major with her Philosophy minor when she considers sustainability issues. During this Circuit Breaker period, Alicia is spending more time with her family and her dog, spending her off-time playing video games while she still can.