a. Describe the negative effects of pollutants on crops, forests, and other mate

Question

a. Describe the negative effects of pollutants on crops, forests, and other materials. Which pollutants are mainly responsible for these effects?

b. Describe the main attributes of successful recycling programs.

c. If you were to design a PAYT program, what would be your main considerations? What actions would you recommend to make the program successful?

d. Differentiate between a hazard and a risk. Where does vulnerability fit in?

e. Suppose that your town wanted to spray trees to get rid of a nuisance pest. How would you use a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether spraying is a good idea? What might be a better approach?

Explanation / Answer

Negative Effects of Pollutants on crops, forests and other materials are as follows:

1) Visible markings on foliage, reduced growth and yield.

2) Altering soil pH by dissolution of pollutants like toxic salts such as metal alluminium etc.

3) Trees and plants plays a very sigificant role in purification of plants but due to higher concentration of the pollutants, they covers the leaf blades reducing light penetration and obstructing the opening of the stomata thus reducing photosynthesis and ultimatley leading to the death of the plants and trees.

The pullutatnts responsible of these are sulphur dioxide, ammonia, flouride, CO, CO2 , Cl2

b) Recycling is the process of converting the waster materials into reusable objects. The main attributes of the successful recycling programs are:

1) To target the resource such as cans & bottles, batteries, paper, food waste etc

2) Proper and safe waste collecting incentives.

3) Clear and consistent waste recycling messages and people awareness.

4) Selection of the recycling area: it should be at convenient location normally frequented by employees.

5) Selection of the storage area: Commonly companies keep thier storage area in the basement.

6) Promote employment with good incentives to attract employees.

7) Regular follow-ups and checks.

c) PAYT is a "pay as you throw' program is a usage pricing program in which residents are charged for collection of muncipal solid waste.

The main consideration to keep in mind before designing a PAYT program are:

1) To estimate whether fixed rate should be kept for any weight of waste or price should be charged according to the weight of the waste.

2) Rate should also be dependent on environmental sustainability such as less waste and more recycling waste means less natural resources to manage those waste.

3) Another important consideration is ecnomic sustainability, whether PAYT covers the cost of muncipal soild waste management expenses.

4) Waste collection costs should be distributed fairly among the population.

d) Hazard: Hazards are potentially damaging physical events, phenomena or human activities that cause loss of life, injury, property damage, social and ecnomic disruption or environmental degradation ( Makoka & Kaplan, 2005). They are external factors that affect the society or elements at risk, whereas vulnerabilities are the internal factors that affect the transformation of hazard into disasters. Vulnerabilities determines a hazard's impact on the society or element at risk (Birkman, 2007)

Risk: It is the chance low or high that a person will be exposed to a certain hazard.

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