According to the WHO (World Health Organization), environmental pollution kills more than seven million people around the world every year. 25% from heart disease and 24% from a stroke. For this reason, air pollution is considered the new tobacco.
Although pollution is sometimes not seen with the eyes, its consequences are increasingly noticeable. It is the cause of many diseases that we tell you below.
When we breathe we are already damaging our health. There are many respiratory diseases caused by this evil. For example, asthma, bronchitis, even lung cancer. It also causes neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Although it affects more directly the cardiovascular system, it has been calculated that 80% of pollution affects this system. This causes the death of up to 3.3 million people from some type of cardiorespiratory disease.
Based on this data, it has become the leading cause of death and morbidity, surpassing smoking and obesity.
Main elements of environmental pollution
Cities are one of the main pollutants, since more traffic is concentrated, with the consequent release of nitric oxide through the exhaust pipes, which worsens air quality enormously. It is estimated that 93% of the world’s population breathes air polluted by traffic in cities. This is not the only pollutant, but also the heating of the houses, the gases emitted in agriculture, tourism, etc.
As you can see, there is not only one polluting factor, the truth is that practically all the activities that we carry out nowadays, are. These activities release or produce certain agents that end up damaging our health. Those that cause more environmental pollution are:
The particles in suspension: it includes the ash, the dust, the fog, the different smokes, etc. These are microscopic liquid or solid particles that remain floating in the air. In big cities, as there are more cars, they accumulate and cause dust clouds. They can be classified into three groups according to their size, the most harmful to health are microparticles and measure 2.5 or less microns. The type of activity that most generates this type of pollution is traffic, between 70 and 80%. For this reason it has become the indicator of pollution in cities.
The exposure to polluted air increases by 2.5 times from dying for other reasons, and even more from cardiorespiratory diseases.
- Ozone: is the main component of photochemical fog, it is created when other contaminating elements are found. In summer is when it is produced more.
- Carbon Monoxide (CO): is generated when there is incomplete combustion of the different fuels that have carbon, such as biomass.
- Nitrogen Oxides: are one of the most important because they are used as a reference to alert about high levels of pollution. Diesel cars without catalysts are the ones that produce them the most.
- Sulfur Dioxides (SO2): are the result of the combustion of materials with sulfur. Industrial plants are the main cause, but diesel engines also produce them.
Although it does not seem so, houses also cause pollution, the so called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC). These are chemical compounds that have carbon and are up to 10 times more concentrated indoors than outdoors.
Scented candles, interior paints, wood fireplaces and stoves, pressed wood furniture and cleaning products are some of the most polluting elements inside a home.
As you can see, there are many agents that cause environmental pollution, a fact that every year kills more people. It is in our hands to put everything into practice to reduce it and reduce these mortality figures.