VPE 511: Environment and Environmental Hygiene (2+1)

CAUSES OF MARINE POLLUTION

• Mercury Pollution
• It is entering sea through natural means and also through industrial effluents. Both organic and inorganic mercury is poisonous. Mercury poison is responsible to Minamata disease, which caused several deaths.
• Lead Poisoning
• The chief sources of lead are the effluents from lead and lead processing industries. In some plastic industries lead is used as a stabilizer. Lead is also used in insecticides, food , beverages, ointments and medical concoctions for flavoring and sweetening.
• Fluoride Pollution
• Fluoride is present in water, as naturally and also effluents coming out from industries like toothpaste manufacturing. Many times ground water itself contaminated with fluoride.
• Foaming Agents
• Foaming agents are used in the detergent industry and are released in sea as sewage. It causes danger to fish and are get into oyster or clams. When human eat them without proper cooking spread diseases.
• Pesticides
• Pesticides like DDT get accumulated in sea and it in turn end up inside the sea animals through food chain, which are consumed by human being. The concentration of non bio degradable pesticides increases when move up in the food chain. Thus a fish, growing in 0.1 parts of DDT per billion parts of water will have about 57 mg of DDT per kg of body weight. In India our human mother milk contains.27 mg DDT which is more than the limit prescribed by FAO.
• Chlorinated and Hydrogenated Hydrocarbons
• They are used in fire extinguishers , aerosol propellants, flame retardants and also as solvents. Of the amount used about 25% leak out to environment in which about 10% end up into oceans.
• Heavy metals
• Heavy metals such as Chromium, Cadmium, Mercury, Lead and Nickel are dangerous and major health hazards.
• It is entering sea through natural means and also through industrial effluents. Both organic and inorganic mercury is poisonous. Mercury poison is responsible to Minamata disease, which caused several deaths in Japan.
• The chief sources of lead are the effluents from lead and lead processing industries. In some plastic industries lead is used as a stabilizer. Lead is also used in insecticides, food, beverages, ointments and medical concoctions for flavoring and sweetening.
• Oil Pollution
• Oil spills in ocean is another potential pollution. In Torrey Canyon Disaster spilled 117000 tons of crude oil in English Channel on March 18, 1967.