The Effects of Air Pollution on Health and How to Protect Yourself

The Atmosphere and Air Pollution: Our atmosphere is the mixture of gases that surrounds the Earth from all directions which support the life on Earth. It is composed of 97 percent of the air which contains numerous gases such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, helium, hydrogen, argon, neon, etc. And, its structure is defined by the distinctive layers named, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere. The contamination of air that is mixed like dust, greenhouse gases, coal, liquid petroleum, burning of fossil fuels, burning of plastic, polythene, and other non-biodegradable resources, causes the pollution in the air called air pollution.  

As India became the first highest populated country in the world which has advantages and disadvantages too. Some disadvantages include reducing resources, difficulty in sustaining the resources for the future generation or usage due to high population, cutting down of hills for making the roads, or houses, cutting down of trees for making fuel, furniture, shelters, etc., low property for farming, increasing air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, soil pollution due to industries waste, chimneys, vehicles, population, burning of plastics and non-biodegradable resources, the limited amount of natural resources like coal, petroleum, gases, etc. which directly or indirectly affects our physical or mental health.      

The causes and effects of air pollution on health:

1. Vehicles

There are varieties of fuels that have been present in the market for automobile vehicles that emits several types of gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and hydrocarbons which affect the environment and health. As the population increases, vehicles are also increasing in India which causes air pollution and noise pollution at an increasing rate.

2. Greenhouse gases

The greenhouse is made by humans to create their own climate to grow the plants without the season. It is made up of transparent glasses of green color of polycarbonate or plastic firms to control the temperature and humidity by trapping it, according to yourself. The thing that has some advantages also carries some disadvantages like it causes global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases.

3. Industrial and chemical pollutants

Industrial and chemical pollutants result from human activities which are made in highly populated areas and release harmful gases and chemicals, causing air pollution, water pollution, etc., affecting human health in the maximum amount.

4. Burning

Burning of fossil fuels, polythene, plastic, wet garbage, etc. releases too many harmful gases which affect living beings’ health by causing air pollution, etc.

5. Volcanoes

The eruption of volcanoes releases too much heat, ash, and harmful volcanic gases, and also causes global warming which results in air pollution.   

6. Wildfires

Wildfires occur due to natural calamities or sometimes due to human activities. Once fire has been initiated in forests then it would be difficult to handle the fire. Wildfires release many harmful gases like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and some particulate matter in the air in large amounts which highly polluted the air.

Effects on human health

These all factors, and many other factors cause air pollution along with many other pollution that also affects health. Air pollution causes short and long terms effects on health such as lung cancer, lung infection, allergic reaction in the air passage, difficulty in breathing, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory infection, trachea and bronchus infection or cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) which is a lung disease or can also lead to damage in lungs that cause the breathing problems and commonly known as emphysema.     

Tips to protect yourself from air pollution:

1. In this increasingly populated country, we should look after the issue that happens in the form of increasing pollution. Vehicles have some positive impacts with a negative impact on the earth because of the emission of fugitive harmful gases which affect our health. So to protect ourselves, we should do walking within walking distance instead of going by vehicle. By seeing increasing pollution, the Delhi govt. had announced the Odd-even rule in 2016 on vehicles. It defines that private vehicles that are registered, according to the last digits of number plates, which is odd will be driven on odd days and which have an even number will be driven on even days. The purpose of this rule only was to minimize the pollution that occurs by the running vehicles. Electrical batteries having Scooters and cars came into use.
2. Use masks when you are outside of the house so that less air pollutants will affect your health. During corona pandemic also, you have instructed to wear masks which was the only option to protect yourself from corona because it is a communicable disease, then the vaccination was derived. Wear masks from dust particles, harmful gases, or any other air pollutants that affect your health.
3. Do not burn polythene, plastic, coal, or petroleum as releases harmful gases which directly affect our health. Our government has initiated a dustbin system in which two dustbins are made, one is for dry or biodegradable, and the other for non-biodegradable for less pollution. And, then they suggest making compost for the plants of the dry matter, and for non-biodegradable, they take it to another open ground place where they combust that matter for positive use.  
4. Do daily exercise in the gym so that you stay fit, do yoga like pranayama, kapal bhati, anulom vilom, etc. which squeezes out all the toxicity inside you and inhalation of fresh air occurs which keeps your lungs healthy for respiration.   

Also Read: Sustainable Living: How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint