SEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Communications and
Public Affairs
April 1990
20 K-1003
Earth Trek-
Explore Your Environment
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Contents
Introduction .
Chapter 1 . 1
Mission: Protect the Water
Chapter 2
Mission: Protect the Air
Chapter 3 11
Mission: Protect the Land
Chapter 4 15
Mission: Safer Use of Pesticides
Chapter 5 19
Mission: Safer Use of Toxic Substances
Appendix A 22
EPA and Environmental Laws
Appendix B 24
Dictionary of Environmental Terms
This booklet’s layout allows its pages
to be duplicated so that each student
can have a copy for use in class. Each
page can be duplicated on both sides
of a sheet of paper. Or, an an example
of recycling, teachers can duplicate
some pages, such as page 5 that
contains the Environment Cross
Puzzle, on the blank sides of sheets of
paper that already have been printed
on one side.
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INTRODUCTION
What does the environment
have to do with you?
Your birth made an impact on the world. You were a new
person for the world to feed, clothe, and shelter.
Today, you are still making an impact on the world. When
you turn on the TV or turn up the heat in your home, you use
energy—gas, oil, or electricity. When you bite into a
hamburger from a fast food restaurant, you benefit from the
work of the farmers who raised the beef cattle and the
industries that made the burger packaging.
The way that people produce food, energy, and other
resources you enjoy can keep your environment wholesome and
clean, or make it dirty and polluted.
The way that you use those resources can also affect the
environment. You decide what products to buy, what to repair,
what to throw away. As you grow up, you will also decide
about laws and government policy. Your decisions can make
the environment better or worse.
A closed system
You have something in common with Egypt's King Tut, who
lived thousands of years ago, and with Britain's Queen
Elizabeth, who is living today.
It seems incredible that people so far apart in time and space
could share anything at all. But anyone who has ever lived has
breathed the same air and used the same water that you use
today and your children will use in the future.
This is because earth is a closed system. The air and water
now on earth have always been here. Earth gets no new
supplies from space.
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Nature uses air and water again and again. This is called
recycling. Energy in the form of sunlight provides the power for
recycling by nature.
Take water, for example. It falls to the ground as rain or
snow. From there some of the water soaks deep into the ground
and becomes ground water. Some runs off the land into rivers
and lakes and becomes surface water. Sooner or later both the
surface water and much of the ground water reach the ocean.
At the surface of the ocean and the land, heat from the sun
evaporates water. It rises as vapor into the air to make clouds.
Eventually, the very same water falls back to earth as rain or
snow, and the cycle begins again.
When you pour a glass of water down a drain in your house,
it goes through underground pipes, and eventually rejoins the
never-ending cycle of water from land to air and back again.
The same is true of the air we breathe. No “new” air is
ever added to earth. Instead, green plants clean “used” air. To
grow, plants use sunlight and the carbon dioxide that people
and animals breathe out, and they produce the oxygen we need
to breathe in. The same air has been used over and over again,
for thousands of years, by dinosaurs, King Tut, Queen
Elizabeth, and you.
Nature’s way of recycling resources like air and water has
always worked very well. But in the last hundred years or so,
things have become more complicated. Factories and cars burn
fuel that dirties the air. People have learned how to make
things like plastics and chemicals that nature cannot recycle.
These materials can dirty the land and water.
The number of people on earth is always growing. More
people need more things: more food, more houses, more cars.
Making these things will produce more pollution, unless people
control it. So it is important to remember one thing: if people
create pollution, they can also control it.
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• 4
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food and oxygen
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Animal
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0 . • Ernissions put
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Poisonous
Sewers ________ gases harm
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CHAPTER 1
Mission:
Protect
The Water
Try these questions
(correct answers at end of
chapter):
1. How much water do you
and your family use each
day?
2. How much water is
used to make a ton of
steel?
Life depends on water
Don’t take water for granted. You can’t live without it. To
begin with, your body is about two-thirds water. You need to
take in about a quart of water a day to replace the water you
lose naturally. (Big animals like horses need about 15 gallons
of water a day!)
You need water for cleaning and gardening. Water is also
needed to produce your food. Farmers depend on water to grow
crops and raise animals. Believe it or not, it takes about 115
gallons of water to grow wheat for one loaf of bread, about 120
gallons to care for a chicken to lay one egg, and about 4,000
gallons to produce a pound of beef.
Power plants use water for cooling. And factories use water
to make the kinds of things you and your family use — things
like clothing and paper and gasoline and steel for cars.
Ships carry goods and people around the world on water.
People go swimming, boating, and fishing in water. And many
animals and plants live in water.
Most of the earth’s water is salt water in oceans. Less than
one percent of all the water on earth is usable fresh water—in
lakes, rivers, and underground aquifers.
The supply of fresh water is limited, but life is not possible
without it. That is why it is so important to keep water clean
and useable.
Water pollution
At one time, factories dumped untreated waste directly into
water. Sometimes they dumped it on the land, where it could
seep into ground water. Even today, accidents on ships and
off-shore drilling rigs spill oil into the oceans. Animal waste
runoff from livestock feedlots seeps into ground water.
Fertilizers and pesticides wash off from fields and forests and
soak into ground water. Wastes from mines drain into water.
People flush sewage down household pipes into the water.
The result of all this is water pollution. Sometimes you can
see garbage floating in polluted water. Sometimes polluted
water smells, or looks muddy or too ugly for swimming or
boating. But even water that looks clean and smells good can
be polluted. It may be loaded with germs and dangerous
chemicals that you cannot see or smell.
Polluted water is unsafe for drinking, bathing, or swimming.
If you eat a fish that lived in polluted water, you can absorb
from the fish the same poisons that the fish absorbed from the
water. In polluted water, many fish and plants cannot live at
all.
Nature recycles fresh water. But nature can only do so much!
We are putting more wastes into water than nature can handle
alone. We need to help nature clean water.
1
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Water treatment
Wastewater treatment plants clean water in two stages,
primary and secondary (see picture below). Treatment takes
out or destroys most of the harmful wastes and pollutants in
the water. Treated water is then released into rivers and lakes.
Third stage, or advanced treatment can remove manmade
chemicals. It includes ways to speed settling out of solids in
wastewater, use of electricity and carbon filters to remove
wastes, and other special methods. More communities may
have to use third stage treatment of water in the future.
Advanced treatment costs a lot of money.
Dirty water from sewer pipe passes
screen where large junk is trapped.
Fats and oils float to surface and are skimmed
off. Heavy solids settle and are
removed as primary sludge.
Dirt and gravel sink to tne
bottom and are removed.
PRIMARY SLUDGE
SCUM
Air and sludge (tiny particles from sewage containing
bacteria that eat pollution) are mixed with dirty water.
-
Secondary settling tank
Activated biological sludge is
settled out and returned to
the aerating tank or removed
for further processing.
WASTE SLUDGE
EJ
through
GRIT
2
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Advanced treatment
Manmade chemicals
are removed.
ftJL
L_ ‘ —.. -
Some Facts
about Ground Water
Ground water is
underground. You cannot
see it, but it is still very
important:
• About half of all the
people in the U.S. get
their drinking water
from ground water
sources.
• Americans use about
90 billion gallons of
ground water every day.
Most of this is replaced
by rainfall.
• In the U.S. most
ground water is used for
agricultural purposes
like irrigation. Only 14
percent of U.S. ground
water is used for
drinking.
• Even though it is
underground, ground
water is not protected
from pollution.
Dangerous chemicals
that are on the surface of
the land or buried
underground can seep
( sinfectin9tan ’
Chlorine or other
chemicals are added to
kill germs. Then water
goes to waterway.
Primary treatment
removes about 3O% of
pollutants. Secondary
treatment removes up
to 90% of pollutants.
0
into ground water and
pollute it. Contamination
can also come from
mines, highway salts,
fertilizers, abandoned oil
wells, gasoline spills, and
dozens of other sources.
Water goes directly to disinfecting tank
unless advanced treatment is required.
A-
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Experiment
Learn more about how water is treated by cleaning it yourself.
You will need:
A flour sifter, or homemade container with a screen bottom
Absorbent cotton
Coarse, clean sand
Clean gravel
A large glass jar
Muddy water
Cover the screen at the bottom of the sifter or container with
a layer of cotton, next a one-inch layer of the coarse sand, then
a one-inch layer of the gravel. Set the sifter over the jar.
Slowly pour muddy water into the sifter. Look at the water
when it comes out the bottom of the sifter into the jar. Is it still
muddy? (Note: Don’t drink the water. It may look clean, but it
still has germs.) Compare what you did with what wastewater
treatment plants do, as shown on page 3.
Other Activities
• Do you waste water in your home? Wasted water flows into
sewers and must be cleaned all over again. Make a list of ways
you and your family can save water.
• Make an exhibit for your school or library showing how
drinking water is distributed and wastewater is treated in your
community.
• Visit a water treatment plant in your community.
• Visit a construction site or a gas station after a heavy rain.
Look at the ground to see if the rain has washed dirt away
from the site, or oil away from the gas station, into the street.
Find out where the runoff of dirt or oil goes, and if anything
can be done to stop the runoff.
• Draw a map of your community showing sources of water
pollution.
Answers to questions 1. If yours is like the average American family, you use about 160
at beginning of gallons of water a day. You drink some of this water. But you also use
chapter: gallons and gallons for bathing, cooking, washing the dishes and the
laundry, brushing your teeth, watering the plants, flushing the toilet,
and filling your squirt gun.
2. It takes about 60,000 gallons of water to make one ton of steel.
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Environment Crossword Puzzle
“Crossword” means that the words
cross each other.
Some words go “across”.
Some words go “down”.
T
H
LIKE
S
What is the missing word in each
sentence below?
Find the number of each word in
the puzzle.
The FIRST letter of that word goes
in the box with the number.
Across words
“Every litter bit — — 1 —
Trash tossed away where it doesn’t
belong is called — — —.
The is what
every living thing needs for life.
(Already filled in)
— _9 — are good to use for cleaning.
Save them.
— — 13_ - — needs to help keep
the environment clean.
Each living thing must have
— 14.. — to survive.
Dirty water from factories can kill
16
People, animals, and — — — live
on earth.
When you run the shower too long,
you _21__ 22__.
When something like garbage or
dirty water is not nice to look at, it
is — 2 —.
Emissions from 24 can make
the air dirty.
I I
10
1 8 E
2
16
17
21 —
6
NVI
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20
2 u ____
L u - H I
Down words
When you leave a room, — —
_IJ_ the lights to save energy.
Paper is made from — 4 —.
The air and water now on — — — —
have always been here; no new
supplies come from space.
The environments of many wild
have been hurt by man.
Loud — - — - bothers people and
hurts their ears.
Don’t throw away good, used items
you no longer need. — 1ff_ them
.19 — so others can use them.
Too many have hurt the
environment.
Living things need fresh _1 5 in
the environment.
Many birds eat - J1_ — —.
Save resources; don’t be a —
(Already filled in)
7
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13
12
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Solution to crossword puzzle on
last page.
5
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CHAPTER 2
Mission:
Protect
The Air
Try these questions
(correct answers on page 8):
1. What is smog?
2. If you live far away
from factories and traffic,
are you safe from air
pollution?
Air pollution
Have you ever heard someone say he is going outside to get a
breath of fresh air?” Have you ever tried to imagine what life
would be like if the air were so dirty that people couldn’t “get a
breath of fresh air?”
How does air become dirty? Your car produces emissions that
go into the air. The factories that made materials for our car
produce more emissions. All over the world, millions of cars
and millions of factories emit soot, ashes, and chemicals into
the air. Still more of these substances come from garbage that
is burned and chemicals that are sprayed.
The result is air pollution. Sometimes you can smell
pollution and sometimes, when the air looks hazy or smoky,
you can see it. But sometimes it’s invisible.
Invisible or not, air pollution can cause a lot of damage. Even
a little air pollution can make your eyes burn and your head
ache. It can tire you out, blur your vision, make you dizzy, and
make it hard for you to breathe. Air pollutants can also affect
asthma and make it easier for you to catch a cold or the flu.
And air pollutants have been linked to some cases of serious
disease such as lung cancer and heart ailments. In fact, some
scientists believe that air pollution costs Americans billions of
dollars a year in doctor bills and unearned paychecks due to
pollution-related illness.
People are not the only ones hurt by air pollution. Plants
surrounded by polluted air may not grow. Fish and animals
may die. Statues and building materials may be discolored or
corroded (eaten away).
Fighting air pollution
In the United States, people have been fighting air pollution
for years, and their efforts are working.
Industries must now control emissions from factories. New
technology cuts down emissions and removes pollutants from
emissions.
Cars now come equipped with something called a “catalytic
converter” for the engine system. The converter changes the
harmful hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide that a car produces
when it burns fuel into harmless carbon dioxide and water.
Since a car with a converter uses unleaded gas. converters also
reduce lead levels in the air.
Some states and communities require emission control
systems in cars to be inspected every year to make sure they
are working properly. This discourages drivers from removing
catalytic converters from their cars, or from pumping leaded
gas into a car that should use only unleaded gas. In most
states, it is against the law to switch from unleaded to leaded
fuel, or to tamper with catalytic converters.
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4 Thanks to these different kinds of emission controls, the air
in the United States is better than it used to be. Amounts of
ç most major air pollutants have gone down. For example,
between 1975 and 1984 amounts of carbon monoxide and sulfur
dioxide in the air dropped an average of more than 30 percent.
The amount of lead dropped 70 percent. Today you can go
outside “to get a breath of fresh air in more and more places
in the U.S.
New problems
Air quality is improving, but more work needs to be done.
Scientists now believe that some problems are more serious
than they first thought.
For example, researchers are studying harmful effects of acid
rain. When some emissions from factories and cars mix with
sunlight and vapor in the air, they change into acidic
compounds. These compounds can travel long distances in the
air. Then they can fall to earth with rain, snow, or dust. When
they fall on lakes, they can turn the water acidic, like vinegar.
In some lakes, all the fish died because the water became so
acidic.
Another problem scientists are learning more about is indoor
air pollution. The air inside your house may be more polluted
than the air around a factory! Indoor air pollution can come
from oven fumes, hair spray, cigarette smoke, insect sprays,
fingernail polish, carpet cleaners, and other ordinary household
products. Even the dirt and rocks around a house can cause
pollution, if they contain radon. Radon is a radioactive gas
which occurs naturally in some soil. It is colorless, odorless,
and tasteless, but some scientists believe it causes lung cancer.
Sometimes the simplest cure for indoor air pollution is just to
open a few windows. More complicated methods may involve
installing exhaust fans or plugging up holes in a house
foundation so radon cannot seep through.
Answers to questions 1. Smog—a word that comes from combining the words “smoke” and
at beginning of “fog”—is made up mainly of ozone. That is a gas formed in the air by
chapter: reactions of chemicals from car and factory emissions. There is smog in
lots of cities without much industry. Cars and trucks are largely
responsible for that smog.
2. You are not necessarily safe, because air pollution travels. It is
carried along by wind and weather. In fact, air pollution that starts in
one place often falls to earth hundreds of miles away, in a different state
or even in a different country.
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Experiment
Find out how dirty the air is in your neighborhood.
You will need:
3 sheets of white paper or cardboard
Petroleum jelly
Smear two sheets of paper on one side with petroleum jelly.
Put the sheets next to each other, smeared sides up, on a
window sill, and clamp the sheets in place with the closed
window. Or tape them to the outside of the window. Do this
when it is not raining or snowing.
Take one sheet in at the end of one day and see how dirty it
looks (compare it to a clean sheet of paper). Save the dirty
sheet. Take the other sheet in after a week. See how dirty it is
(compare it to the first dirty sheet and the clean sheet). How
dirty do you think the air is?
Other Activities
• Cut down on your car trips; even with pollution controls, cars
still emit some pollutants. When possible, walk, bike, or take a
bus instead of driving. Help organize carpools for group trips.
• Take pictures of some buildings or statues in your
community. At your local library or newspaper office, look up
old pictures of the same buildings and statues. See if they have
changed over the years. Find out if the change is due to air
pollution.
• Draw a map of your community showing sources of air
pollution.
Possible Health
Effects of Major Air
Pollutants
• Lead: Affects the kidneys, nervous system, and all
blood-forming organs.
• Carbon monoxide: Weakens heart contractions, reducing the
amount of blood pumped through the body. Reduces oxygen
available to muscles and organs. Can affect mental function,
vision, and alertness.
• Particulates: Irritate the respiratory system.
• Ozone: Irritates eyes, nose, and throat. Reduces lung function.
• Nitrogen dioxide: Irritates the lungs, causes bronchitis and
pneumonia, lowers resistance to respiratory infections like the
flu.
• Sulfur dioxide: Irritates the respiratory system.
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V 4
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CHAPTER 3
Mission:
Protect
The Land
Try these questions
(correct answers at end of
chapter):
1. Where does most of the
hazardous waste in the
U.S. come from?
2. Which one of the
following pieces of trash
cannot be recycled?
An empty ketchup bottle
Yesterday’s newspaper
An empty soft drink can
An old electrical
transformer
The metal plate at the
bottom of a cardboard
juice can
Hazardous wastes
Your favorite sweater has just been dry cleaned. It looks great.
All the spots are gone. But it smells funny.
At a gas station, you watch an attendant fill up a car’s gas
tank. The tank overflows. Gasoline spills onto the ground.
Gasoline and dry cleaning solvents that “smell funny” are
important. They give us some of the things we want: clean
clothes, and fuel to drive from place to place. But if dry
cleaning solvents, gasoline, and thousands of other chemical
compounds are spilled, or stored, or dumped improperly, they
can become “hazardous wastes.”
Something becomes a waste when it cannot be recycled, or
used again. A hazardous waste is a waste that is toxic
(poisonous), or that can catch fire, corrode other materials, or
react with other chemicals.
Hazardous wastes can pollute the land. They can even pollute
the water that is underneath, or next to, the polluted land.
Over the last 40 years, American industry has developed new
chemicals to make new products. For a long time, companies
got rid of the wastes that came from making these products by
dumping them or burying them in the land. People didn’t
realize that this could be dangerous.
Today we know better. At old dumps and disposal sites across
the United States, hazardous wastes could threaten public
health and the environment.
And hazardous waste is not going to disappear. Every year,
about 65,000 companies or company units make or transport
more than 250 million metric tons of hazardous waste!
Americans want medicines, computers, cars, jewelry, insect
sprays, paint, and other products. So what can we do about the
hazardous wastes that come from making these products?
Fighting hazardous waste
Beginning in 1990, it will be against the law to get rid of most
hazardous waste in land, unless land disposal of the waste
is safe, or unless the waste has first been treated. Treatment
can remove the hazards from hazardous waste. Scientists are
studying different treatment methods to find out which ones
work best. Possible treatments to destroy hazardous waste
include incineration burning), and use of bacteria or chemicals.
But companies that don’t create hazardous waste in the first
place don’t have to worry about how to treat it. With the land
disposal ban coming up, many companies are trying to figure
out ways to create less hazardous waste.
Other companies are working on ways to recover hazardous
materials and use them again. By changing a pollutant into a
resource, a company can save money and protect the
environment at the same time.
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As for the old dumps and disposal sites where hazardous
wastes have already done their damage, the country is working
to clean them up. Have you ever seen newspaper pictures of
people dressed in funny-looking rubber “space suits” poking
long sticks into messy barrels? Those people are taking samples
of the contents of the barrels. Their rubber suits help protect
them in case the contents turn out to be dangerous. The
samples they take will be studied in laboratories to find out
exactly which hazardous substances or chemicals are inside the
barrels. Then the contents will be disposed of safely.
Solid waste
“Solid waste” generally refers to the paper, aluminum cans,
glass jars, plastic bottles, spoiled food, broken TV sets, old
stoves, junk cars, and other trash and garbage that people
throw away. Every year in the U.S., garbage trucks collect
about 132 million tons of solid waste! What should we do with
all of it?
If we toss the stuff away carelessly, it litters streets,
highways, the countryside, and waterways.
If we burn it in the open, it pollutes the air.
If we leave it in the open at garbage dumps, it smells, looks
ugly, and attracts rats and insects.
If we bury it, we lose the value of materials in it that might
be recycled.
Open garbage dumps (where most of our solid waste goes)
improve when they are turned into sanitary landfills. In a
sanitary landfill, a layer of soil applied daily over the waste
keeps pests away and keeps pollutants from washing off
the site after rain. The soil layer also prevents litter from
blowing away, and does away with the need to burn the waste.
To recycle solid waste and reclaim what is of value is an
important goal. It is probably the best method of waste disposal
because it allows materials to be used again. Otherwise, solid
waste is really wasted solids.
There are many reasons why we don’t recycle and recover
more solid waste today. We don’t know how to recycle some
wastes, such as certain plastics. And it often seems easier and
cheaper just to throw things away. But the cost of hauling,
disposing of, and replacing throwaways is going up.
Some garbage that cannot be recycled or reclaimed now can
be burned to produce energy. When burnable and non-burnable
wastes are separated, the burnable waste can be mixed with
coal and used as fuel in electric utility boilers.
Note in the picture (left) how garbage can be collected and
some of it burned to heat a building, while metal and glass
that does not burn is recovered.
One way to reduce the solid waste problem is to produce less
solid waste. Do we really need all the cellophane, cardboard,
12
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colored paper, metal foil, and plastic bags that so many things
come wrapped in?
Experiment
Make a miniature sanitary landfill.
You will need:
A large container, such as a glass jar or milk carton
A piece of fruit or vegetable, such as a slice of tomato or an
apple core
A small piece of plastic, such as a plastic fork or part of a
broken toy
Soil
Place some soil in the bottom of the container. On top of the
soil, place the piece of fruit and the piece of plastic. (You can
add other things too, like a small piece of aluminum foil or a
small piece of styrofoam.) Add more soil on top of these items.
Put the container in a warm place, and keep the soil damp.
After one week, and again after another week, check to see
what has happened to the fruit and the plastic and any other
items you buried in the soil. Does the fruit look different than
it did when you buried it? Does the plastic look different? Some
things come apart, or decompose, in the environment. Other
things persist, or last for a long time. Which do you think is
more harmful to the environment? (Note: If you are allergic to
mold, don’t handle the mold that may have grown on the fruit.)
Other Activities
• Recycle some solid waste in your home. Use an empty egg
carton to store small items. Clean and decorate a can or jar for
use as a vase or pencil holder. Use the blank side of printed
paper for scrap paper. Think of other “throwaways” in your
home that can be used again.
• Organize your friends or classmates into a recycling club.
Gather such things as newspapers, aluminum cans, or glass
bottles for sale to companies that will recycle them. Or gather
large discarded cardboard boxes for sale to people who are
packing up to move.
• Draw a map of your community showing sanitary landfills
for garbage, hazardous waste dumps, and factories that
generate hazardous waste.
Answers to questions 1. Most of the hazardous waste in this country comes from industry. And
at beginning of most of industry’s hazardous waste comes from chemical companies.
2. e o e ectrica trans ormer cannot e recyc ed 1 PCBs are in its
cooling system. PCBs are a dangerous chemical. All of the other trash
can be recycled, using a fraction of the energy that would be needed to
make the products from scratch.
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CHAPTER 4
Mission:
Safer Use
of Pesticides
Try these questions
(correct answers at end of
chapter):
1. What is the most
important thing to do
before using a pesticide?
2. How many pesticides
are now registered in the
U.S.?
Pesticides and you
Farmers use pesticides to keep bugs, mice, and other pests from
destroying their crops. If you are not a farmer, you will
probably never come into contact with pesticides, right?
Wrong.
Have you ever eaten an apple or a peach or a potato?
Pesticides were used to help grow those fruits and vegetables,
and traces of the pesticides may be inside or on the skin.
Have you ever watched someone give a pet shampoo to a
scratching dog to kill its fleas? Pesticides were in the flea bath.
Have your parents ever aimed a can of bug spray at a pesky
cockroach or mosquito, or used a can of disinfectant to clean a
dirty bathtub? Pesticides were in both those cans.
Pesticides are chemicals that kill pests. People use them to
kill harmful insects, weeds, and animals like mice and rats.
Thanks to pesticides, some insect-related diseases like
malaria have been nearly wiped out, and crops have been saved
from destruction. Thanks to pesticides, America has become a
land of agricultural plenty.
But pesticides, because they are poisons, can also be
dangerous. Particles of sprayed pesticides can float into the air.
When it rains, other particles can wash off plants to the
ground, and from there into ground water. No matter where
the pesticides end up—in the air, on land, in water, or on the
crops where they were first applied—pesticides can cause harm.
Farmworkers who use pesticides run the highest risk. If the
pesticide touches their skin, or if they breathe fumes from
pesticide spray, they can be poisoned. Some researchers think
that hundreds of thousands of farmworkers in the U.S. suffer
from pesticide poisoning every year.
People who drink water contaminated with pesticides, or who
eat food that contains traces of pesticides (called residue ) may
also get sick. Some pesticides can cause cancer and birth
defects in people.
Even wild animals can die if they eat crops or smaller
animals that have come into contact with pesticides.
The “R” factor
People use 10 times more pesticides today than they did 40
years ago. Even so, insects cause more crop damage now than
they did then. Why?
Because, over time,”superbugs” develop which can resist killer
chemicals. This resistance is known as the “R” factor.
Scientists have identified more than 400 insect pests that can
resist one or more pesticides. They have found about 150
species of bacteria and fungi, more than 50 species of weeds,
and several species of rodents that have also developed
pesticide resistance.
15
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When a new pesticide is substituted for an old one, pests
often come to resist the second pesticide as well as the first.
Since the pesticide payoff is unpredictable, people are looking
for better ways to control pests. Sometimes they bring in
natural enemies to eat the pests. Wasps, for example, were
used to destroy walnut aphids that once threatened California’s
walnut groves. Other pest-controlling insects have been used to
save sugar cane in Hawaii, grain in Michigan, apples in New
York, and oranges in Florida.
Other methods also help. “Trap crops”—disposable
decoys—draw pests away from main crops. Careful breeding
produces strong plants that resist pests. Artificial sex smells
lure pests into sticky traps. Radiation or hormone treatments
stop pest reproduction. Early harvesting bypasses some pest life
cycles completely.
Use of all these different methods together is known as
“integrated pest management.” That’s a fancy name to describe
a simple goal: as much as possible, control pests naturally
instead of chemically. With integrated pest management,
pesticides will still be used, but more carefully and less often.
Protect yourself from pesticides
Never use pesticides yourseffl
It is dangerous, and it is against the law, for children to use
pesticides. In fact, some pesticides come in child-proof
containers. Pest control with pesticides is a job for adults.
Learn to recognize a pesticide by the label on the container.
But avoid touching or using pesticide containers, even if they
are empty. Spilled pesticides on a container can poison you.
Three kinds of pesticide labels are pictured to the left. Each
has a key word you should look for:
DANGER
WARNING
CAUTION
Should you or someone else be accidentally poisoned by a
pesticide, follow the directions on the pesticide label about
what to do.
The “R” Factor: Sometimes an insect does more than develop resistance to a
Talk about pesticide. It grows to depend on the pesticide. A species of bee in
Brazil actually eats the pesticide DDT!
Extremes!
Normally, a deadly dose of DDT for bees is 6 parts per million.
Scientists have found that the bees in Brazil accumulate DDT in
their bodies to concentrations as high as 42,000 parts per
million. That is more than four percent of the bee’s total body
weight! Yet the bees show no ill effects from the DDT.
16
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Experiment
Observe how a food chain works.
You will need:
A container such as a glass aquarium,
clear plastic shoe box,
or large, wide-mouthed glass jar
Seeds of clover, grass, mustard, or pea
Pebbles or sand
Soil
Water Put a layer of sand or pebbles at the bottom of the container,
Plastic wra then a layer of soil. (If you are using a large jar, lay it on its
p side.) Moisten the soil with water. Plant the seeds. Cover the
Crickets container tightly with plastic wrap. Then put it in a place that
Chameleon is sunny, but away from direct sunlight and direct heat.
After the seeds have grown, punch airholes in the plastic
wrap and add a few crickets. Do they eat the plants? Add the
chameleon. Does it eat the crickets? The food relationship
between plants, plant eaters, and animal eaters is called a food
chain. If the plants had been sprayed with a pesticide, what
could happen to the bugs that ate the plants? What could
happen to the animal that ate the bugs? (Note: If you don’t
have the materials for this experiment, you can observe
plant-eating insects and insect-eating animals like birds or
frogs outdoors.)
Other Activities
• Pick a landscaped area around your school or home. Ask the
person in charge what pesticides are used on the area. Find out
what chemicals are in the pesticides. Visit the landscaped area
when it is raining. Find out where the water running off the
area goes. Could the runoff contain traces of pesticides?
• Adopt a tree. Weed it to remove hiding places for pests.
Water it in dry weather to keep it strong and resistant to pests.
• If you have a garden at home or school, try keeping it
pest-free without pesticides. Wearing gloves, pick off larger
pests like caterpillars and Japanese beetles with your hands.
Hose the plants with water to wash pests off.
• Do not harm ladybugs, praying mantises, spiders, toads, and
birds. They help control insect pests.
• Wash fruits and vegetables well before eating them.
Answers to questions 1. The most important thing to do before using a pesticide is to read the
at beginning of label and follow directions.
chapter:
2. About 45,000 pesticides, made from one or more of about 1,400
chemical compounds, are now registered in the U.S.
17
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DISIt4FECTANTS
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CHAPTER 5 _________ __ __
Mission: Toxic substances
Safer Use Have you ever used a bottle of glue? Or been in a room with
cei ing ti es. r ta en medicine for a sore throat.
of Toxic Chances are, you have done all these things. But you
S probably did not know that the glue and the tiles and the
u S aii.ces medicine contained toxic, or poisonous, substances.
Toxic substances are found in thousands of useful, everyday
Try these questions things. In final form, in your house, most of these products are
(correct answers at end of safe if used correctly. But in the environment, the toxic
chapter): substances that make up some of these products can be
1. Are all chemicals toxic? dangerous, even deadly.
2. Which of the following
products contain, or used How much is too much?
chemicals? Today, scientists can measure smaller amounts of toxic
Children’s pajamas substances than ever before.
Roof shingles Suppose you accidentally spilled a few drops of orange juice
Paint into a large swimming pool. After a few hours, the few drops of
Car brake linings juice would be spread throughout the hundreds of thousands of
Carbonless copy paper gallons of water in the pool. Next, suppose you scooped up some
water from the pool into a clean cup. You wouldn’t be able to
see, taste, or smell the juice.
If you tried to reach a ratio of 50 parts of juice per trillion
parts of water, you would have to spread your few drops of juice
through 20 swimming pools!
How much is toO much? In the case of orange juice, a few
drops in a swimming pooi is not important. But if the
substance in the water were dioxin instead of juice, a few drops
could be very dangerous.
With modern technology, scientists can now discover very.
very small amounts of dioxin and other toxic substances—
amounts as small as 50 parts per trillion—in soii, water, food,
and consumer products.
A person who eats a fish with 50 parts per trillion of dioxin
runs a health risk. Is the risk worth it? For most people, the
answer is no, because there are many other things for them to
eat besides that fish.
A person who takes medicine for cancer also runs a risk. The
medicine may cause other sickness. Is the risk worth it? For
most people, the answer is yes, because the cancer is probably
worse than the other sickness.
In. the case of toxic substances, people have to decide whether
the risks involved are worth it.
19
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Toxic “Hit List”
If someone were to make up a “hit list” of toxic chemicals,
dioxin, polychiorinated biphenyls (PCBs), ethylene dibromide
(EDB), and asbestos would probably be on the list.
Dioxin is a waste byproduct from the manufacture of
herbicides that are used to kill weeds. Scientists have a lot to
learn about the effects of dioxin. They already know that it can
cause cancer in test animals, and skin disease in people. Dioxin
can be destroyed by incineration (burning).
PCBs, which are heat resistant, were once used in certain
kinds of electrical equipment. PCBs may cause cancer and
birth defects in animals. Production of PCBs is now banned in
the U.S.
EDB is a pesticide that has caused cancer and birth defects
in test animals. Use of EDB on grain, fruit, and soil has been
banned in the U.S.
Asbestos is the name for a group of natural minerals
(silicates) that separate into thin, strong fibers. Asbestos, which
is heat resistant, was once sprayed on ceilings to make them
fireproof, and was also used in hundreds of other products.
When asbestos breaks down into a dust, it can be breathed in,
and can cause cancer and lung disease. Use of asbestos in
almost all products will soon be discontinued.
Experiment
Find out how some substances can be toxic to living things.
You will need:
2 containers, such as flower pots or plastic cups
2 plants, or 2 seeds (bean seeds are easy to handle)
Soil
Salt
Water
Place soil in the containers. Put one plant, or one seed, in
each container and place in a sunny spot. Keep the soil moist.
(If you use seeds, wait until they grow before continuing the
experiment.) Water one plant regularly with ordinary tap
water. Water the other plant regularly with a combination of
tap water and salt. What happens to each plant? What does
this tell you about the effect of certain substances on living
things?
20
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Word Search
How many of the following words
can you find in this puzzle? Each
word may be spelled forwards.
backwards, downwards. or
diagonally. One word is spelled
diagonally backwards. Answers to
puzzle on last page.
environment
pollution
groundwater
runoff
recycle
smog
emissions
radon
lead
ozone
corrode
waste
hazardous
litter
incinerate
decompose
pesticide
water
toxic
dioxin
asbestos
discharge
standard
dump
chemicals
lab
air
earth
land
rain
dispose
health
acid
smoke
residue
risk
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SK
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LO
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KR
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Answers tO questions 1. No. About 63000 chemical substances are used in the U.S. Of these.
at beginning of only a small percent pose a toxic risk to health or the environment.
chapter:
2. All of these products once contained toxic chemicals. In the 19 iU s.
children’s pajamas were flameproofed with a chemical called Tris.
Roofing shingles and car brake linings are made with asbestos although
use of asbestos will be banned soon.) Carbonless copy paper and some
paints were once made with polychiorinated biphenyls PCBs .
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APPENDIX A
EPA and Environmental Laws
To help fight pollution, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, or EPA, was created in 1970.
It works with other federal agencies, state and
local governments, business firms, and ordinary
citizens on environmental problems. EPA acts
under laws of the U.S. Congress.
EPA’S main mission is to set and enforce
environmental standards. These are limits on
how much pollution can be allowed without
hurting people’s health and welfare. To
determine what the standards should be, EPA
conducts research on effects of pollution.
Since pollution problems in one part of the
country sometimes differ from those in other
parts, state and local governments have to decide
for themselves what pollution to control and how
to control it. EPA helps by providing new
information and by funding projects like sewage
treatment plants.
But on the big problems of national pollution,
EPA makes sure that the same rules are followed
all over the country.
Water
Clean Water Act
This law aims to restore and maintain water
quality in rivers, lakes and wetlands. The law
is carried out by EPA and the states.
• Each state sets water quality standards for
its own waters based on how it plans to use
those waters (for swimming, fishing,
drinking, etc.). EPA sets the minimum
standards that each state must meet or exceed.
• When a city or an industry want to
discharge wastewater into a river or stream,
it must have a permit that limits the amount
of pollutants it is allowed to put into the water.
• Most states issue these permits and then
check on the dischargers to make sure they
are meeting the limits in their permits.
• Wetland areas like swamps and marshes
cannot be filled in with dirt unless EPA
approves the action. Under the Safe Drinking
Water Act, EPA sets national standards to
protect drinking water. Under the Marine
Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act,
EPA regulates dumping of wastes in oceans.
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22
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Air
Clean Air Act
This law authorizes EPA to protect the public
health and welfare from bad effects of air
pollution.
• EPA sets standards for six major
pollutants. The standards are limits on the
amounts of each pollutant that can be in the
air. The six pollutants are sulfur oxides,
nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone,
particulates and lead.
• EPA sets standards to control emissions of
the following toxic substances: arsenic,
asbestos, benzene, bervlium. mercury.
radionuclides, and vinyl chloride.
• EPA sets emission standards for different
sources of air pollution. For example. EPA
sets limits on emissions for new motor
vehicles, new industrial and power plants and
old plants that are being fixed up.
• Each state must have a plan to ensure its
people have clean air. EPA reviews each
states’s plan. If the plan isn’t good enough.
EPA can require that it be improved.
Wastes
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
This law authorizes EPA to work for safe
disposal of solid and hazardous waste. It also
encourages recycling.
• EPA works with the states to check on the
safety of all solid waste disposal sites and to
shut down open dumps.
• EPA tracks the movement of hazardous
wastes from the places where they originate to
the places where they are disposed of.
Treatment. storage. and disposal sites must
prevent wastes from reaching soil and water.
Otherwise, they will not be permitted to
operate.
EPA must decide if it is safe to continue
disposing of certain wastes in the land. II
EPA misses the deadlines for these decisions.
land disposal of the wastes must
automatically stop.
EPA must establish standards for tanks that
store hazardous materials underground.
EPA must establish better standards for
places where hazardous waste is stored on the
ground. cThese places are called landfills.
surface impoundments. and waste piles.
Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act also known
as Superfund
This law authorizes EPA to respond to waste
problems that endanger public health or the
environment.
• EPA. state governments, or those who caused
a hazardous waste problem must clean up
abandoned dumps, oil spills. and other spills of
hazardous materials.
• Cleanup costs can come from a special fund.
Most of the money in. the fund comes from a tax
on companies that manufacture certain
chemicals and petroleum.
• EPA makes a National Priorities List of
hazardous waste sites that qualify for long-term
cleanup action. Hundreds of sites across the
country are on the list.
Pesticides
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and
Rodenticide Act
• People and firms that make pesticides must
obtain a registration with EPA before they
can sell them in the U.S.
• Pesticide makers must prove that their
products affect pests the way they say they
will, and that the products—when used as
directed— will not harm people, livestock,
wildlife, crops, or the environment.
• EPA decides whether a pesticide can be used
in general or restricted ways. People who apply
restricted pesticides (those that require special
handlingi, must get particular training.
• EPA sets standards and provides for training
to make sure that pesticide applicators are
qualified to use restricted pesticides.
• The EPA Administrator has the authority
under the Federal Insecticide. Fungicide and
Rodenticide Act to cancel or stop registration
of pesticides that are harmful to people.
livestock, wildlife, or crops.
• All pesticide containers must be
labeled according to criteria developed by
EPA (see Chapter 4). Under the Federal
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, EPA
decides on safe levels for pesticide residues
in food for humans and feed for animals.
Toxic Substances ___
Toxic Substances Control Act
• EPA can require tests of new chemicals to
find out if they cause cancer, birth defects, or
have other harmful effects.
• EPA keeps an inventofy of chemicals used in
business in the U.S. Chemicals that are not on
the inventory cannot be made in, or brought
into, the U.S. before EPA reviews them.
• EPA can stop companies from making.
selling, using, or throwing away any chemical.
it can do this if it finds that the chemical
endangers health or the environment,
• EPA sets standards for laboratories that test
chemicals.
23
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APPENDIX B
Dictionary of Environmental Terms
Acid Rain: Precipitation (rain,
snow, sleet, or hail) which contains
water more acidic than normal.
Caused by reactions of chemicals
in the atmosphere.
Aquifer: An underground layer of
earth, gravel, or porous stone that
contains water.
Atmosphere: The body of air
surrounding the earth.
Ban: To prohibit, or not allow,
something.
Biodegradable: Able to be broken
down into simpler products by
microscopic plants and animals.
Byproduct: A secondary product
of a manufacturing process. A
waste byproduct is an unwanted
byproduct that can either be
disposed of or recycled.
Catalytic converter: A device in
cars that reduces air pollution by
changing harmful contaminants
into harmless carbon dioxide and
water.
Compound: Made up of two or
more parts or elements.
Conservation: Not wasting, and
renewing when possible, the
human and natural resources of
the world.
Contaminate: To pollute
something, or make it dirty.
Decompose: To break down and
change in both chemistry and
appearance through the action of
bacteria.
Dispose: To get rid of something.
Methods to dispose of hazardous
waste include burning it and
burying it.
Ecology: The study of
relationships between living things
and their surroundings.
Emissions: Waste materials that
are discharged into air.
Sometimes emissions are treated,
or cleaned; sometimes they are
not.
Environment: Everything.
including living things. that
surrounds a person. animal. or
plant.
Erosion: The wearing awa of
land surfaces by the action of wind
or water.
Ground water: The supply of
water under the earth’s surface
that forms natural reservoirs.
Hazardous waste: Ignitable.
corrosive, reactive, or toxic waste
that needs special care in disposal.
Incinerator: A furnace that burns
under controlled conditions.
Mobile source: A moving source
of pollution, such as a car or truck.
Persist: To live on. to last for a
long time.
Pollute: To make the land. water.
or air dirty and unhealthy.
React: To act in response to
something. For example. a
chemical can change. or react. if
added to another chemical.
Recycle: To reuse waste
materials.
Register: To obtain licensing to
sell a pesticide. based on tests that
show the pesticide is safe when
used as directed.
Residue: Something that remains.
or is left over.
Resist: To repel. or withstand.
something, as an insect resists a
pesticide.
Resources: Air. water, soil, trees.
plants. minerals, wildlife, and
other things that make up the
natural wealth of the earth.
Respiratory system: A bod’s
system for breathing. including the
nose, throat, and lungs.
Runoff: Water from rain, melting
snow, or irrigation that flows over
the ground and returns to streams.
sometimes carrying with it
pollutants picked up from air or
land.
Sediments: Soil, sand. and
minerals washed from land into
water, usually after rain.
Seep: To leak slowly, as a liquid,
through a porous substance such
as soil.
Sewage: The organic waste and
wastewater that comes from
homes, farms. and businesses.
Site: Place or location.
Solid waste: Trash and garbage
without enough liquid to flow
freely.
Species: A biological classification
that includes a single kind of plant
or animal.
Standard: Limit on the amount of
pollution that can be produced.
Stationary source: A non-moving
source of pollution. such as a
factory smokestack.
Tamper: To change something.
especially for the purpose of
damaging or misusing it.
Tolerance: The safe level of a
chemical residue in food.
Toxic: Poisonous
Treatment: Use of chemical.
biological, or other processes to
make waste less toxic or non-toxic.
Wastewater: Water that carries
solids. and that comes from homes.
farms. and businesses. See
“Sewage”
Wetlands: Water-soaked areas
such as swamps. bogs. marshes.
and estuaries.
24
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Answers to Crossword Puzzle
and Word Search
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Regional Offices of EPA and States Covered
EPA Region 1
JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02203
(617) 565-3187
Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Vermont
EPA Region 2
26 Federal Plaza
New York, NY 10278
(212) 264-2515
New Jersey, New York, Puerto
Rico, Virgin Islands
EPA Region 3
841 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 597-6685
Delaware, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, West
Virginia, District of Columbia
EPA Region 4
345 Courtland Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30365
(404) 347-3004
Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee
EPA Region 5
230 South Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 886-7935
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin
EPA Region 7
726 Minnesota Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66101
(913) 236-2803
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska
EPA Region 8
999 18th Street - Suite 500
Denver, CO 80202-2405
(303) 293-1603
Colorado, Montana, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Utah,
Wyoming
EPA Region 9
1235 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 556-5136
After June 30,
75 Hawthorne
San Francisco,
(415) 556-5136
Arizona, California, Hawaii,
Nevada, American Samoa,
Guam, Trust Territories of the
Pacific
EPA Region 10
1200 Sixth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 442-4280
Alaska, Idaho, Oregon,
Washington
1990:
Street
CA 94105
00
EPA Region 6
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, TX 75202-2733
(214) 655-2200
Arkansas, Louisiana, New
Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
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