Radiation Pollution and Noise Pollution

Challenges to clear

• Match all eight.
• Connect Iodine 131 to the harm it does.

The task

Match each source, place or isotope to what it did or what it means.

What this lesson covers

• X-rays — Carry so much energy, measured in photons, that repeated exposure damages body cells (Too frequent and too many exposures can cause damaged chromosomes, genetic variations and bone cancer, which is why machine operators take special care to shield themselves.)
• Chernobyl, Ukraine, 1986 — The first of the two very serious nuclear plant explosions named in the chapter (Nuclear power plants leak radiation either through negligent disposal of waste or through an accidental explosion of the plant itself.)
• Fukushima Daiichi, Japan, 11 March 2011 — The second, after which radiation leaked into the sea and reached people passively through sea food (It shows that radiation pollution need not be inhaled or touched directly — it can travel up a food chain into people hundreds of kilometres away.)
• Iodine 131 — The chief radiation pollutant released at Fukushima, which raises the risk of thyroid cancer (Different isotopes concentrate in different organs, so the disease that follows a leak depends on which isotope escaped.)
• Cobalt 60 at Mayapuri, Delhi, in 2010 — Radioactive waste from a research centre that reached market streets through scrap dealers (A Delhi resident who unknowingly kept Cobalt 60 pencils in his back pocket suffered serious burns. Careless disposal, not an explosion, caused this one.)
• Noise — Any unpleasant or loud undesired sound that interferes with hearing and concentration (The definition turns on being undesired, not on loudness. A mild conversation becomes noise while you solve a maths problem, yet light reading on a running train is not disturbed at all.)
• A single sudden loud sound — Can damage the ear drum, while prolonged noise can lead to deafness (This is why the chapter asks you not to burn fire crackers, and why loudspeakers are restricted at night.)
• Planting trees along the roadside — Reduces the noise reaching the ears, as does keeping the doors of houses closed (Noise leaves no residue behind, so it is controlled only by blocking or stopping it at source — prohibiting horns, restricting loudspeakers, screening with trees.)

Hint

Radiation and noise are the two pollutants that add no substance to the environment — they are energy. That is also why noise stops the instant its source stops, while radiation does not.