50 Fun Facts About Pollution

Pollution coming from one concentrated site, like a factory, is called what?

Agricultural runoff and microplastics are the classic nonpoint sources.

Roughly how many people did pollution kill worldwide in 2019?

That was about one in six deaths that year, roughly three-quarters of them from air pollution.

Which type of pollution caused about three-quarters of pollution deaths in 2019?

Outdoor air pollution from fossil fuels alone is blamed for roughly 3.6 million deaths a year.

Before the 1860s, what did the word 'pollution' usually refer to?

Air pollution was instead called 'the smoke nuisance', 'the smoke evil' or even 'the smoke plague'.

PFAS compounds are informally known by what nickname?

Scientists in 2022 called PFAS pollution a newly crossed planetary boundary.

Photochemical smog forms when nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react with what?

That is why Los Angeles, sunny and car-choked, became the smog capital by the 1940s.

Particulate matter labeled PM2.5 is measured in what unit?

The number refers to particle size; PM10 is the coarser fraction.

Thermal pollution most often comes from using water as what?

Warm discharge changes the temperature of rivers and lakes downstream.

Which natural feature is among the most significant natural sources of pollution?

Eruptions release carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and particles carrying arsenic, lead and mercury.

Which volcanic gas can kill humans at concentrations below one part per thousand?

Sulfur dioxide harms animals and the ozone layer; hydrogen halides cause acid rain.

Americans are under 5% of the world's people but produce roughly what share of its CO2?

They also generate approximately 30% of the world's waste.

In 2007, which country overtook the United States as the biggest producer of CO2?

Per capita it still ranked only 78th among nations at the time.

What are polychlorinated dibenzodioxins commonly called?

TCDD, one of them, contaminated Love Canal in New York for decades.

Which heavy metal is found in rechargeable batteries and is a frequent soil contaminant?

Chromium, lead, arsenic and benzene round out the usual suspects.

Which 2001 book revealed industrial leftovers being recycled into fertilizer?

The practice left soils poisoned with metals.

The 2017 Lancet Commission found pollution kills how many times more people than wars and violence?

It also found pollution deaths triple those from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

In 2019, air pollution was blamed for 1.67 million deaths in which country?

That was 17.8% of all deaths nationally that year.

By about what percentage did US coal-pollution deaths drop between their 1999 peak and 2020?

Plants closed or installed scrubbers, with the sharp decline starting after 2007.

What is the term for toxins becoming more concentrated up the food chain?

Heavy metals like mercury become exponentially more concentrated at each trophic level.

Dissolved carbon dioxide causes which ongoing change in the world's oceans?

It lowers the pH of seawater, threatening shell-building marine life.

Which two pollutants are the main causes of acid rain?

They react with water in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acids.

In environmental economics, pollution from manufacturing is an example of what?

Because the polluter doesn't pay the full cost, the good tends to be overproduced and underpriced.

What is a carbon tax an example of, in economic terms?

It prices the externality so the market reaches the socially optimal level of pollution.

Which industry topped Pure Earth's 2016 list of the world's most polluting?

Mining, lead smelting, tanning and artisanal mining filled out the top five.

Which English king banned the burning of mineral coal in London in 1306?

The fuel was called 'seacoal' because it arrived by sea; 'coal' then meant charcoal.

What 1858 event on the Thames led to London's sewer system?

It was one of the earliest extreme cases of urban water quality problems.

Which two US cities first enacted clean air laws in 1881?

Progressive reformers were also fighting street pollution from three million working horses.

How many horses worked in American cities in 1900, producing urine and manure?

The first generation to see cars replace horses called automobiles 'miracles of cleanliness'.

Which Pennsylvania town suffered a deadly smog event in the late 1940s?

Along with Los Angeles smog, it was a public reminder of industrial air pollution.

The Great Smog of 1952 prompted which landmark British law?

The smog killed at least 4,000 people; later estimates put the toll at 10,000 to 12,000.

In which month and year did the Great Smog hit London?

Cold weather, an anticyclone and no wind trapped coal smoke over the city for five days.

Who wrote Fumifugium, the first book about air pollution, in 1661?

The diarist complained of 'the inconveniencie of the aer and smoak of London'.

PCB dumping led the EPA to ban eating fish from which river in 1974?

Love Canal and the Valley of the Drums soon after pushed Congress to pass Superfund in 1980.

Which Soviet dump site did the Worldwatch Institute call the 'most polluted spot' on Earth?

It took radioactive waste throughout the 1950s and 1960s, near Chelyabinsk.

The Amoco Cadiz oil tanker wrecked in 1978 off which French region?

The wreck and the Bhopal disaster six years later showed such catastrophes could happen anywhere.

What pH range does acid rain typically fall into?

Normal water sits between about 6.5 and 8.5; the lower the pH, the more acidic.

The world's best-known garbage patch sits in which ocean gyre?

Its low density of tiny particles means satellites and even passing boaters cannot see it.

Which organization estimated the Pacific garbage patch at 1.6 million square kilometres in 2018?

By the end of 2024 it had removed more than a million pounds of trash, about 0.5% of the total.

Minamata disease, first found in Japan in 1956, is caused by poisoning from what?

The Chisso Corporation dumped methylmercury into the bay from 1932 to 1968; local cats got 'dancing cat fever'.

Which 1962 book documented the harm of the pesticide DDT?

Rachel Carson's book helped trigger a US agricultural ban on DDT and the creation of the EPA.

Which Cleveland river caught fire in 1969, galvanizing the US environmental movement?

It had burned at least 14 times; in 2019 it was named River of the Year for its recovery.

Which 1987 treaty banned the production of CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals?

The ban took effect in 1989, and ozone levels stabilized by the mid-1990s.

Hooker Chemical sold the Love Canal dump to a school district in 1953 for how much?

Some 19,800 tonnes of chemical byproducts lay beneath the neighborhood that followed.

What did the Exxon Valdez strike in Prince William Sound in 1989?

More than 10 million US gallons of crude oil spilled, affecting 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline.

Which 2010 spill is the only one larger than Exxon Valdez in US waters?

Exxon Valdez remains the costliest disaster ever with no direct human fatalities.

About what percentage of the world's people live under light-polluted skies?

Skyglow affects about 23% of the world's land area, and 80% of North Americans cannot see the Milky Way.

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles smaller than what size?

Primary microplastics include microbeads and nurdles; secondary ones come from the breakdown of larger items.

By 2050, the weight of microplastics in the sea is estimated to exceed that of what?

Virtually every piece of plastic ever made still exists in some form.

Which toxic gas leaked in the 1984 Bhopal disaster?

Over 500,000 people were exposed near the Union Carbide pesticide plant in what is called the world's worst industrial disaster.

A 2023 Global Framework on Chemicals with 28 targets was agreed in which German city?

One target is to end the use of hazardous pesticides where risks are unmanaged by 2035.