Environmental Geography
World Geography
Pollution: The Radio Active Pollution
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Credit |
Among the hazardous substance, radioactive substance are
most toxic. As compared to organic poisons, injurious effects of radio nucleoside
are exceedingly high. For instance radium is times more lethal than arsenic.
Nuclear war materials, test explosions, power plants and radio-isotopes used in
medicine, industry and research are the main sources of radioactive pollution
that could threaten our environment security.
The result of radioactive pollution are too injurious and
far-reaching. For human body both internal and external radiations are
hazardous. Radiations reach to our body from cosmic-rays and milky-ways, and
other light sources in nature. Internal radiation reach to our body through
food items. The fall of celestial bodies and particles are responsible for
cosmic radiations. The light particles spread in the atmosphere and heavier
fall on the land. These particle are full of energy and develop heat on the
surface of earth.
The quantity and intensity of cosmic radiation increases at
higher levels from sea surface. These radio-active particles are very harmful
for our body.
➽ Radio-active Pollutants-
Atoms, nuclear explosions, nuclear wastes, isotopes, X-rays
are main sources of artificial radiation. The nuclear tests develop so much
heat energy and radiation, which destroy everything in test area including
lakes etc.
➽ Radio active source can be divided into two categories :
(a)
Natural Source (b) Artificial Source.
(a) Natural Source-
i) Cosmic rays- They come from outer space. Passing through atmosphere they
effect human body.
ii) Radio active element- Some natural radioactive substance
and elements emit radiations continuously. They are found in nature. The main
radio-active elements are thorium, uranium and radium. The residents living
near these source are affected by its radiation.
iii) Atmospheric Radio activity- Inert gas radon found in
atmosphere is radio-active and affects human body.
Atmospheric Radio activity |
iv) Internal Radiation- A very little quantity of few
radio-active elements are also found in human body. E.g. Potassium-40,
Strontium-90, Carbon-40 etc.
(b) Artificial Sources- The manmade artificial radio-active
substances pollute the atmosphere. Some fire-arms are manufactured by using
radio-active elements. These substance are also used for human welfare. X-rays
are used for diagnosing diseases. These substance pollute whole atmosphere. The
following are the harms of using artificial radio-active substance:
Artificial Sources (Credit) |
i) Uranium and Thorium are extracted and separated from ores by
using different chemical procedures. During this activity dust and gases are
emitted, which pollute the environment. For a single X-ray diagnosis the human
body gets radiation of 0.02 to 3.00 red.
ii) The nuclear explosion creates heavy amount of energy, light,
heat and radio-active substance. It destroys everything including humans in a
vast area instantly. The far-reaching affects after explosion remains for a
very long time. Different diseases like cancer, muscular decay, skin cancer,
blood-cancer, baldness, cataract etc. are the result of far reaching effects of
radiations emitted from nuclear activities.
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