Types of Land Pollution

Land pollution, along with water and air pollution, causes devastating harm every year to ecosystems across the globe. Land pollution can originate from a number of sources, including pesticides, industrial waste and mining. Domestic waste also accounts for a great deal of land pollution. According to greenstudentu.com, Americans generate 30 billion foam cups, 220 million tires and 1.8 billion disposable diapers every year, and enough garbage is thrown away every day to fill 63,000 garbage trucks.

Pesticides and Herbicides
Pesticides are chemical substances developed to kill organisms considered at the very least irritating and that are often life threatening through the spread of diseases to humans. However, many of the pesticides are also harmful to other animals and plants besides the species they are intended to kill. Widespread spraying of the insecticide DDT, designed to kill mosquitoes, also killed many other organisms, including species that fed on mosquitoes. Herbicides, designed to kill unwanted weeds, and widely used in the agricultural industry, can also have a similarly devastating effect on their surrounding ecosystem if they are not applied judiciously.

Industrial Waste
Industrial waste, such as leaks and spillages of material from manufacturing plants, foundries and paint mixing depots, contribute to land pollution. Industrial negligence when it comes to chemical leaks are more frequent in developing countries and can cause untold harm, especially if the substances are dumped in food-growing regions or into rivers used for drinking water.

Deforestation
The burning and cutting down of forests around the world can also be considered a source of land pollution. Forest ecosystems, such as the South American Amazonian rain forest, have evolved over tens of millions as highly specialized and complex ecosystems. When such areas are cleared and then used for the mono-cultural of bio-fuels, the natural nutrient cycling systems that existed are broken down, and the soils are degraded, making future recolonization a long shot. In addition, forest regions are carbon sinks, and their destruction can release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Mining
Giant open cast mines are bored into the sides of mountains the world over, to extract everything from limestone and marble to gold and platinum. These mines often use up vast amounts of water from the surrounding areas. While most large mining multinationals are reasonably strictly monitored to make sure they clean up after their operations, many of the smaller operations do not adequately clean up when they are finished, leaving behind kerosene, bitumen, mining brine and other chemicals to contaminate the surrounding topsoils, turning the environment into an area fit only for extremophiles -- extreme organisms that thrive at high levels of aridity, toxicity, radioactivity and heat.

Domestic Waste
Encompassing everything from the accumulation of packaging, refrigerators and other electrical appliances in waste heaps around the world to human sewage, which can spread disease, domestic waste contributes to land pollution. On average, a U.S. citizen produces around 3,285 pounds of hazardous waste per year. In waste heaps, electronic and medical equipment contain many hazardous chemicals that can kill local birds and mammals and pollute topsoil.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/info_8355443_types-land-pollution.html

Description of Land Pollution

It is easy to confuse land pollution with soil pollution, but they are two different things. Soil pollution concerns itself with how various substances, mostly chemicals, affect our soil and environment when present at higher than natural concentrations. Land pollution concerns itself mainly with something all Americans know intimately--their trash. Trash and trash disposal rarely pollutes just our land. It also pollutes our water and our air.

Size
Man-made solid waste, or trash, is a huge problem. Everyday, the average American produces almost 4 pounds of trash. At almost 300 million people in the United Sates, that is over 1 billion pounds of trash produced in this country daily. About half of that ends up in landfills, and only 30 percent of it is recycled.

Significance
Land pollution in the form of litter is still a huge problem. Americans throw nearly one million bushels of trash along roadways and in public places, most of which directly ends up in local waterways after being washed down storm drains. Many products, like plastic, Styrofoam and paper clog up waterways and leach chemicals into the water, while cigarette butts leach carcinogens like benzene, formaldehyde and carbon monoxide into the water A large amount of trash in storm drains can cause backups and flooding.

Effects
Landfills contain many hazardous chemicals that leach into ground water and that disperse into the air. Many household cleaning products contain ammonia, phosphorus, chlorine bleach and dangerous acids. Batteries leak toxic heavy metals like mercury, lithium, lead, cadmium and nickel into the soil, where it seeps into ground water. Chemicals like antifreeze, car fluids, used oil, paint and solvents end up in landfills as well, adding toxins to the air and groundwater. Many of these substances and their fumes are also flammable, creating a serious fire hazard.

Considerations
Biodegradable food products may not seem like they could be hazardous, but rotting food attracts disease-carrying vermin and creates pathogenic bacteria. This bacteria washes into local water systems in runoff and can poison animals and humans. Rotting vegetable matter and pet waste also creates methane and carbon dioxide as it decomposes. These are both greenhouse gases that some scientists believe contribute to global warming.

Prevention/Solution
About 80 percent of all trash is recyclable and as much as 75 percent of Americans have access to curbside recycling or recycling centers. There is a lot of room for better land pollution management in every American home. Many of the items that recycle best, like plastics, glass and metal, take decades, if not centuries, to break down and will remain in landfills. Recycling not only cuts down the amount of trash in landfills and reduces the amount of natural resources wasted to make new items, but is also makes financial sense. It is dramatically less expensive to recycle and refine a wide range of materials, such as aluminum, than it is to make new. Recycling and reusing saves money as well as the environment.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/about_6458693_description-land-pollution.html