Marrine Pollution
Tarih: 16 Mayıs 2021
Global problems get bigger and bigger since technology and industry improve every day. Despite there had been already plenty of global issues, pollution started to become among them with the help of industrial revolution. Humanity was looking for abundant places to drain or bury their waste material, and marine environment, especially oceans and big seas stood out. Pollution is mostly done by anthropogenic materials — materials manufactured by people. Thus, marine pollution is worsening, widespread, in most countries it is not controlled at all.
That is where chemical engineers matter. Every field in industry has different type of polluted materials — complex mixture of toxic metals, plastics, petroleum, urban and industrial wastes, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceutical chemicals, agricultural runoff and so on. Engineers must be professional and well-educated at their field in order to avoid unwanted effects, runoff reactions and accidents. However, it is inevitable to cut pollution off immediately. For example, plastic. Everybody uses it daily, and it is also easy and cheap to manufacture. But it takes centuries to decay in nature. Besides, there are hundreds of types of plastic, and every one of them has particular toxic effects. Microplastics have recently been on focus of global organizations because of their size (less than 5mm) and could not be easily detected in the first times. They are used in rubbers, cosmetics and hand cleansers by us and we create pollution without knowledge. Nanoplastics (less than 100nm) are more than smaller and harder to detect than microplastics. They usually appear while degradation of washing clothes which include synthetic fibers. Each of them worries global organizations in a different ways.
It is commonly said by manufacturers that there have not been notable disaster because of marine pollution. They always forget Minamata disaster happened in 1950s Japan which ended in negotiating of Minamata convention after 60 years, in 2013. The convention meetings held in 3 years, and it does not allow manufacturers to expose mercury or mercury compounds into environment. But what happened in Minamata Bay? Reports show that there were lots of firms near the bay and they threw their waste into the bay. Simultaneously, people lived there, used polluted water daily, consumed fish and were unaware of the harm. As time passed, people caught unknown disease and the number of ill people increased — every 700 of 4000 people were affected. 40% of affected people reported dead in those years. In 1960s people started to protest against those firms but it took effect so late. In the same years, cause of deaths identified as mercury poisoning. What it says to us is that unethical work, not-thinking future and denying precautions always lead to fatal results. Engineers and shareholders should have considered bad effects of their work.
We can talk about marine pollution, what it has done and how to avoid from it till forever. In energy, agriculture — in every field waste should be taken seriously. It is not only engineers’ and manufacturers’ problem, but also everyone’s problem. Our future, our descendants’ futures depend on our attitudes. There are two ways recommended by global organizations against marine pollution: investigating and creating non-dangerous materials and less use of manufactured materials. Unless we take this seriously right now, no one will have time to do it tomorrow.