Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
that have significantly reduced outdoor air pollution.
Without individuals and organized groups putting
strong political pressure on elected officials in the 1970s
and 1980s, these laws and regulations would not have
been enacted, funded, and implemented. In turn, these
legal requirements spurred companies, scientists, and
engineers to come up with better ways to control out-
door pollution.
The current laws represent a useful
output ap-
proach
to controlling pollution. To environmental sci-
entists, the next step is to shift to
preventing air pollu-
tion.
With this approach, the question is not
What can
we do about the air pollutants we produce?
but rather
How can we avoid producing these pollutants in the first
place?
Figure 15-20 shows ways to prevent outdoor and
indoor air pollution over the next 30-40 years. Like the
shift to
controlling outdoor air pollution
between 1970 and
What Can You Do?
Indoor Air Pollution
•Test for radon and formaldehyde inside your home and
take corrective measures as needed.
• Do not buy furniture and other products containing
formaldehyde.
• Remove your shoes before entering your house to reduce
inputs of dust, lead, and pesticides.
•Test your house or workplace for asbestos fiber levels
and for any crumbling asbestos materials if it was built
before 1980.
• Don't live in a pre-1980 house without having its indoor air
tested for asbestos and lead.
• Do not store gasoline, solvents, or other volatile
hazardous chemicals inside a home or attached garage.
• If you smoke, do it outside or in a closed room vented to
the outside.
Solutions
• Make sure that wood-burning stoves, fireplaces, and
kerosene- and gas-burning heaters are properly installed,
vented, and maintained.
Air Pollution
Outdoor
Indoor
• Install carbon monoxide detectors in all sleeping areas.
Improve energy
efficiency to
reduce fossil fuel
use
Reduce poverty
Figure 15-21
Individuals matter:
ways to reduce your expo-
sure to air pollution.
Critical thinking: which three of these ac-
tions do you believe are the most important? Which things in
this list do you do or plan to do?
Rely more on
lower-polluting
natural gas
Distribute cheap
and efficient
cookstoves to
poor families in
developing
countries
2000, this new shift to
preventing outdoor and indoor air
pollution
will not take place without political pressure
on elected officials by individual citizens and groups.
Figure 15-21 lists some ways that you can reduce your
exposure to indoor air pollution.
Rely more on
renewable
energy
(especially solar
cells, wind, and
solar-produced
hydrogen)
Reduce or ban
indoor smoking
Turning the corner on air pollution requires moving beyond
patchwork, end-of-pipe approaches to confront pollution at its
sources. This will mean reorienting energy, transportation, and
industrial structures toward prevention.
H
ILARY
F. F
RENCH
Transfer
technologies for
latest energy
efficiency,
renewable energy,
and pollution
prevention to
developing
countries
Develop simple
and cheap tests
for indoor
pollutants such
as particulates,
radon, and
formaldehyde
CRITICAL THINKING
1.
Explain why you agree or disagree with the following
statement: “Because we have not proved absolutely that
anyone has died or suffered serious disease from nitro-
gen oxides, current federal emission standards for this
pollutant should be relaxed.”
Figure 15-20
Solutions:
ways to prevent outdoor and indoor
air pollution over the next 30-40 years.
Critical thinking: which
two of these solutions do you believe are the most important?
