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Chemical pollution HotSpots are the most chemically contaminated places on the planet. In other words, it is the influx into the environment of pollutants in the form of chemical substances formed directly during natural, natural-anthropogenic and anthropogenic processes (primary pollution), or the formation of harmful and hazardous pollutants during physical and chemical processes in the environment (secondary pollution). Sources of hotspots of chemical pollution in the environment can be roughly divided into four large groups: 1) technical installations and devices for the release into the environment of gaseous, liquid, and solid industrial waste; 3) economic facilities that produce pollutants or accumulate and store wastes (landfills); 3) the region from which the pollutants come (in transboundary transfer); 4) planetary pollution, polluted atmospheric precipitation, and domestic, industrial, and agricultural wastewater.
Chemists know about 4-5 million chemical compounds, the number of which increases annually by approximately 10%. According to the WHO, a human being comes into contact with 60-70 thousand chemical compounds in everyday life or production activities, increasing by 200-1000 new substances annually. The volume of industrially produced chemicals is enormous. According to WHO, over 50 chemical compounds are produced by the industry in the world in a volume of more than 1 million. In the modern world, it has already led to ecological disasters. Thus, toxic chemicals are enormously polluting the environment and causing various types of chemical pollution. Below are examples of toxic chemical air, water, and soil pollution. Atmospheric air pollution at the global level leads to climate change, destruction of the ozone screen of the biosphere, and acid rain. The most common groups of air pollutants are atmospheric gases (oxidized nitrogen, sulfur, carbon dioxide, for example), hydrocarbons, phenols, aerosols of heavy metals, and other organic and mineral compounds. The above-mentioned chemicals present in the atmospheric air have a significant impact on the state of the natural environment. This impact on natural ecosystems is diverse and has not yet been sufficiently studied. Most of the pollutants, especially in significant concentrations, can depress the activity of biota. Sulfur dioxide hurts plants. Once inside the leaf when breathing, it inhibits the vital activity of the cells, the leaves first become covered with brown spots, and then it dries out. Nitrogen dioxide has a similar effect on deciduous trees. Soot, by clogging the respiratory stomata of needles, causes conifers to die. Despite the steady increase in water consumption due to the rapid growth of the population, the main problem is the progressive сhemical water pollution, rather than the lack of drinking water in most countries of the world. According to the World Health Organization, river water contains thousands of organic chemical toxic substances. Synthetic detergents from household wastewater are very dangerous for the biota of natural ecosystems, as they prevent oxygen from entering the water due to foaming. It is not only toxic substances in wastewater that are environmentally hazardous. The finely dispersed fibers emitted by construction and other material production plants can clog the respiratory systems of aquatic organisms and cause their death. Accumulation of organic matter from agricultural runoff containing biogenic elements, including nitrogen and phosphorus, poses a great danger for ecosystems of water bodies with standing water. As a result, the process of eutrophication, i.e. increase in biological productivity of water bodies due to the accumulation of biogenic elements accompanied by the so-called water bloom due to mass reproduction of phytoplankton, blue-green algae, and higher aquatic plants, develops in a water body. As a result, water becomes unfit for life. It is customary to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic soil contamination. Natural soil pollution arises as a result of natural processes in the biosphere that occur without human involvement and lead to the entry of chemicals from the atmosphere, lithosphere, or hydrosphere into the soil. The most dangerous for natural ecosystems is anthropogenic soil contamination, especially that of man-made origin. The most typical pollutants are pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, and other substances of industrial origin. Atmospheric precipitation, washing out gaseous pollutants from the atmosphere, leads to an increase in the concentration of sulfuric, nitric, and other acids in the soil, which is accompanied by its acidification and reduction of crop yields. Atmospheric aerosols entering the soil with precipitation in the liquid and solid phases, which usually have a complex chemical composition, contribute to the accumulation of heavy metals and a variety of organic substances in the soil, including dangerous hydrocarbons. Industrial and domestic waste, the volume of which is huge and growing rapidly, contributes to the accumulation of heavy metals, and hydrocarbons, including dangerous toxic chlorine-, fluorine-, and phosphorus-containing compounds with carcinogenic effects in the soil. The third type of soil hotspot of chemical pollution associated with the use of pesticides and fertilizers poses the greatest danger to natural ecosystems.
The problem of chemical pollution must be solved now because the safe limit of chemical emissions into the environment has long been passed. To prevent chemical pollution of the biosphere, it is necessary to take the following measures: ● construction or modernization of enterprises with a zero-waste production cycle; ● the use of effective treatment facilities; ● abandonment of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers in agriculture in favor of biopreparations that are safe for humanity; ● Proper sorting and disposal of waste; ● transition to clean renewable energy sources.