A Scientific Study of the Pollutants of the Environment

Abstract

Environmental pollutants are chemicals that have ended up in the environment as a result of human activities and that are hazardous to health. Environmental pollutants are compounds introduced in the natural environment causing adverse changes, for example, adversely affecting health or causing other types of damage. Among these, the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are of considerable interest since they have a large-scale use in agriculture. A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like oil) or anthropogenic in origin (i.e. manufactured materials or byproducts from biodegradation). Pollutants result in environmental pollution or become public health concerns when they reach a concentration high enough to have significant negative impacts.A pollutant may cause long- or short-term damage by changing the growth rate of plant or animal species, or by interfering with human amenities, comfort, health, or property values. Some pollutants are biodegradable and therefore will not persist in the environment in the long term. However, the degradation products of some pollutants are themselves polluting such as the products DDE and DDD produced from the degradation of DDT.Pollution has widespread negative impacts on the environment.When analyzed from a planetary boundaries perspective, human society has released novel entities that well exceed safe levels.