Common Environmental Pollution Issues

Environmental problems may determine civilizations to fall, societies to perish, and races to become extinct. Intriguingly, such serious consequences are still not triggering appropriate responses. If our awareness increases, so should our responses. Thus, we are here synthesizing the most common and acute environmental pollution issues confronting our modern society – from the perspective of how they can affect us. While global warming seems to be the most famous environmental topic today, many other issues, with severe consequences on our lives, seem to remain unnoticed.

Here is our classification of the most common environmental pollution issues (other than global warming) with direct consequences in our lives.

We and our children can come in contact with environmental pollution in the following main ways:

• Breathing
• Playing in the Ground
• Swimming or bathing in a surface water body (lake, river)
• Drinking well water
• Working in our homes – home improvement (cleaning, constructing, repairing, etc.)
• Home Gardening
• Eating

Here is how each of the very common activities of our everyday lives, listed above, are linked to common environmental issues:

Everyday Activity

• Breathing
• Playing in the ground / Home Gardening
• Swimming or bathing in surface water
• Drinking water from a well
• Work around the house
• Eating

Environmental Issue

• Vapor Intrusion
• Exposure to airborne particulates
• Exposure to contaminated soil
• Exposure to  contaminated water
• Exposure to contaminated groundwater
• Exposure to building materials
• Exposure to food toxins

Vapor intrusion is the upward migration of contaminated air (volatile organic compounds) from groundwater or subsurface soil into homes or buildings, and may be a strong contaminant.