Environmental Hazards At Home
Types of Contamination
There are three main types of contamination that individual
home-owners should worry about. They include ground
water contamination, soil
contamination and air contamination.
Exposure to chemical agents in the environment -- in air, water,
food, and soil -- has been implicated in numerous adverse effects,
from cancer to lung
disease to brain damage to birth defects.
Some evidence is ironclad; some is suggestive at best. Although
the acute effects such as poisonings are the best understood,
it seems clear that hazardous pollutants contribute to the large
and growing toll of chronic conditions, such as cancers and heart
disease. Chemical pollutants can also play a role in infectious
diseases, perhaps by rendering the body less able to ward off
infections. The exact magnitude of the risk they pose, however,
is difficult to quantify. This has fueled an intense debate over
what constitutes safe use and disposal of toxic substances. This
debate has occurred mostly in the affluent countries but is increasingly
occurring in the developing world as well.
|
