What is Soil Pollution?

What is Soil Pollution?

What is Soil Pollution, How it occurs and how it affects living things and what can we do to prevent it? Soil Pollution refers to the contamination of soil with abnormal concentrations of toxic substances like trash, debris, poisonous chemicals, etc.

In other words, when the level of such toxic and unwanted substances in the soil increases enough to cause severe damage to living organisms such as plants, animals and humans. The soil is said to be contaminated or polluted.

There are many factors responsible for it, from the waste produced at giant factories to excessive use of pesticides on an agricultural land to the trash we throw away in our homes and school. Trash caused by us, is one of the many ways that soil gets polluted here on the Earth.

Once the garbage is picked up from your home or school, it is brought to a land fill, where it is buried in the soil and left there to decompose down over a time, which releases the greenhouse gas methane, which may lead to global warming.

Not only that, different kinds of soil pollution have been known to have adverse effects on the health of both animals as well as humans. As the harmful chemicals that can get into the soil and water can cause cancer, deformities and many other skin problems.

What can we do to prevent soil pollution? Something as small as recycling, picking up trash from your surroundings, can make a huge difference. And some other ways include not using paper napkin or paper towel unless you absolutely need one, drinking water from a cup rather than plastic bottle, and being sure to properly dispose of harmful trash like batteries and computer equipment.

Did you know, the planet losses 24 billion tons of topsoil each year because of land pollution? Also, you won’t believe but 80% of the world’s forest has been destroyed already. In South Africa, 90% of the tropical forest cover is demolished.