The Controversy Behind Factory Waste,
A Cause For The Imbalance In Nature.
By: Rudianny Zapata
Humanity’s greed of products, industries, wealth, has led the environment we live in into a zone of danger and toxic waste. As the decades go, and the growth of factories increases, planet Earth has taken drastic and depressing turn for the worst. Oxygen is being polluted by the toxic gasses these factories release (as seen in the picture above). Bodies of water have become polluted biohazards being dumped, places where people in the lines of poverty go in search of water to use to bathe, cook, and drink. The effects of all of these major toxic wastes have polluted the Earth we once knew, the one filled with trees – not like nowadays where trees are burning from how harsh weathers have become. Scientists and major organizations have seen how some factories have created havoc in habitats and environment. This has caused quite the controversy, factories have gained infamous popularity over the suffering of the people who live around current or old factories, scientist have also raised attention to the biohazards over populating rivers in India. Factories have had a negative effect on the environment, and some have not even seek a solution to them, rather they abandon the factories believing the problem would fade. However, the New York Times has proven differently.
To begin with, two articles in the New York Times showcase how harsh, and toxic environments become after being tainted with plants and factories. A writer in The New York Times , Ron Stodghill, raises awareness to how those around old plants or factories still suffer through the pollution that surrounds them in the article “Decades After a Plant Closes, Waste Remains”. Stodghill visits a community that borders with an old plant who was not cleaned properly by it’s previous owners and although time has passed, the residents suffer through health risks. Children are unable to play as they wish, and act as children when the “soil, air and groundwater in their community” is contaminated as Stodghill suggests. Roger DeGroat, 58 years old, who has been living in the area his whole life comments how the area has caused his skin to appear in “blotches” along with inexplicable times of dizziness and itchiness in his eye. DeGroat also comments how his children have suffered from “nose bleeds so bad in their sleep that they wake up stuck to the bed, like they’ve been hit in the head or something”. In other words, not only is the waste toxic, but the remains of such places are as well. Why do we still fund such companies that after abandoning their prior plants or factories don’t bother to clean up after their mess and cause damage to those around them. DeGroat’s doctor was unable to explain why he was suffering from dizzy spell, one can imply that it was placebo or that he lied, however, how can one ignore the blotches on his skin or the nose bleeds his children spontaneously suffer from.
Another article emphasizes on the consequences factories evade which costs the health others. By evading such necessity they create unsafe environments for organisms and humans living around it, along with supplementing another factor into why climate change is increasing. The constant release of toxins have been noticed to gradually cause an effect on people, especially those in large countries like China. China is infamous for its mass population and mass production, the factories that lay in China aren’t like the ones in India, which we will focus on later, that release their toxic waste in the water. They main way of release for these factories is through the air causing harmful toxins to be released. Researchers have suggested “ambient air were limited in East China and more studies were focused on the Shanghai City” (Sun, J. 2016). In the report, it was also stated that “1–5% of the mass of dioxins present in human body through inhaled air and 0.5–2% through skin”. In other words, these pollution were not only becoming a hassle to the environment, but it was sticking to humans in a way that will gradually become as harmful as what residents of Upper Ringwood, New Jersey began to experience. These residents were going through a similar case of residents of the community DeGroat lived in, they experienced “skin rashes, nose bleeds and bronchitis” (Sengupta, S. 2008).
References
Archive, H. (2019, July 8). Retrieved November 19, 2019, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-09/factories-pollution-industrial-revolution/11287846
Sengupta, S. (2008, July 7). Decades Later, Toxic Sludge Torments Bhopal. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/world/asia/07bhopal.html
Stodghill, R. (2007, July 29). Decades After a Plant Closes, Waste Remains. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/business/yourmoney/29spill.html
Sun, J., Tang, J., Chen, Z., Nie, J., Zhang, S., & Li, J. (2016, July 29). PCDD/Fs profile in ambient air of different types factories and human health risk assessment in Suzhou of Jiangsu province, China. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1309104216301726
