How we can Overpower Pollution

ELA Writing assignment: Problems & Solutions

   Pollution is a big problem nowadays, there's pollution in the land, water, and even air. Smoke and soot-stained rain sometimes fall down upon suburban cities. Animals swallow plastics and metals dropped in the wilderness. Texas-sized rafts of junk entangle dolphins, fish, and seabirds. Sometimes it seems impossible to fix, but there are ways to slow down and even reverse this pollution.

   Air! We breathe it every day. The air around us is filled with oxygen, the life-giving gas that keeps us organisms going. Most animals can't survive without it, including us! But, some have come to notice that city air and the air around big factories has a stale and bitter twinge to it, while the air in the forests smells pure and sweet. The cause of this is from a phenomenon called 'aerial pollution'. Aerial pollution is where various pollutants, such as cigar smoke, car fumes, and factory smoke billow up into the air and stick around. Sometimes the blend of soot, dust, and smoke goes high up into clouds and condenses with raindrops and falls down as murky black water. This is known as 'acid rain'. Acid rain is not actually corrosive acid, but the name refers to its toxicity. The water may fall into different water-sources and contaminate it, making it unsafe to consume. That poisons the animals and plants that absorb the dirty solution. 

   There are a few things we can do to stop this. A gigantic part of the spread of this horrid air is big factories. Not all factories have to create smoke, they only produce smoke when they burn coal, natural gas, and other items that require burning, thus producing smoke inevitably. To stop making smoke or to reduce the bad effects, they can either filter the air out, use clean energy if possible, or even change their procedures entirely! You can stop buying from companies that pollute, and explain why you don't buy from them and why you want them to turn towards clean production alternatives. You can ask authorities like senators to put laws in place against pollution. 

   Smoking is not a major cause of areal pollution, but it still helps a little bit! In smoking, you literally breathe in and out noxious smoke, filled with nicotine. Nicotine addicts you to cigars. That is a horrible thing since the smoke in cigarettes causes many diseases, like cancer in the lungs and mouth. You can stop people from polluting the air with it by encouraging people to not smoke. If someone you know smokes, try to convince them to quit. Tell them about the dangers of smoking and what it does to themselves and the environment. 

   You can also call your senators and mayors and persuade them to put trees and plants around. The trees sort of 'purify' the air, making it safer and nicer to breathe. One big pollutant and greenhouse gas is carbon, which plants absorb to make energy. Carbon dioxide also has oxygen as a part of it, but the plants do not need that, so they just release the clean air out as 'waste'. That is why wild areas smell so nice; the plants are constantly purifying the air! Besides making the cities and towns smell fresher and healthier to breathe, the plants also add a lovely bit of color into the grey, white, and black cityscape. Flowers and flowering trees make people feel cheery. It has been proven that bright, happy colors make people feel better. Adding plants will make people feel healthy and happy!

   Garbage is floating all over the ocean, washing up on beaches and collecting in absolutely gargantuan 'trash islands'. The largest trash island is the size of Texas! Animals come near the garbage and think that it's food. Sea turtles eat floating plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish. A plastic bottle could look like a fish to a pelican, and it could gulp it down. Big hunks of rubber could seem like a piece of blubber and get eaten by sharks. Animals don't have to eat the whole items for it to be horrible. Little bits can be just as awful! As trash floats around, they break down into very small granules called 'nurdles'. These nurdles get eaten by little fish, which get eaten by bigger fish, and so on. Eventually one of the contaminated fish ends up on our dinner plate, and we become part of the cycle too! Besides consumption, the litter can pose other threats besides being eaten and poisoning us and the animals. Straws get jammed gruesomely into animals facial orifices and get sucked into whale and dolphin blowholes. How do we stop this from happening!?

   If you are swimming and find garbage, you can collect it and throw it in a bin or recycling can. If you can, take trash that you find on the ground and dispose of it as well. Tell your friends and family not to litter, and warn them about the consequences. Garbage isn't always in oceans, though. A lot of the garbage floes start from trash and waste being dumped in rivers, which lead to the ocean. Again, factories can cause this. Although, this always happens on purpose. Factories may choose to dump chemicals and trash parts inside rivers, oceans, and any other body of water. We must show that it's a crime to harm the environment in such a way! Again, contact authorities, sign petitions and stop buying from factories who pollute.

   Pollution can be everywhere, and similar things to the ocean can happen on land. Some people drop trash on the ground instead of simply throwing it away! Animals again eat the litter and the litter can fall into other bodies of water and add to the ocean junk. The trash all over cities and towns can cause 'pests' to gather round and consume what food is left in the plastic, glass, and metal, or consume the litter themselves! Besides being harmful to the environment, litter just looks awful in general.

   The easy way to not add to the problem is to just dispose of trash accordingly! At least hold them until you can dispose of them properly, instead of just dropping it on the ground. Again, convincing people to do the right thing is a key part. As with the others, make it a strict law that such littering would not happen. It will make the environment and our eyes happy!

   Pollution is a big problem! It harms us, animals, and the environment as a whole. We need to reverse the effects of polluting in all ways! People need to educate others about such blasphemy and work out a way to stop it. Laws should be put in place to halt the effects, and projects should be launched to return the world back to good health. Let's keep our home healthy!