Pollutant

The pollutant has as a definition most often selected: a Altéragène biological, physical or chemical, which audelà of a certain threshold, and sometimes under certain conditions (potentiation), develops negative impacts on whole or part of a ecosystem or Environnement in general.
Ceci amounts defining, the pollutant like a Contaminant of one or more compartments of the ecosystem S (Air, water, ground) and/or of an organization (which can be the Homme) or affecting the ecosystem, beyond a threshold or Norme .

Types of pollutants

The pollutants can be classified
  • according to their nature (susbstance material, solid, liquid or gas), of origin Minéral E or Organique, or Rayonnement (X-radiation, Ultraviolet, Radioactivité) abnormally present in a given environment.
  • according to their target in the Environment (plants, mushrooms, animals with cold blood or heat, etc),
  • according to their internal targets at an organization (ex: a Neurotoxique affects the nervous system or one of its parts)
  • according to the compartments of the ecosystem which they affect (polluting water, air, grounds),
  • according to their mode of action,
- direct (arsenic which kills the animal)
- or indirect (ex: the substances which affect the Couche of ozone and which indirectly cause an increase in UV Cancérigène S and Mutagène S).
- synergistic (the pollutants can reinforce or mitigate their effects, one speaks then respectively about positive or negative Synergie S, or about Potentialization.
  • according to the durability of their effects;
- among polluting chemical substances, one distinguishes for example those which are biodegradable, dégradable and those which are not it, and one considers
- in the same way one considers the half-life of the radioactive pollutants, which varies few microseconds to hundreds of thousands of years
  • according to their size or the importance of the amount posing problem;
- one calls micropolluants active Product (mineral or organic) toxic with negligible concentrations (about the µg/l or less).
- the macropolluant are substances or molecules (even objects), of origin natural or not, being in the environment with abnormal concentrations, with negative effects on the Alive one.

  • It is the effect, the target and the amount which characterize a pollutant, as much as the nature of the substance or the radiation in question.

  • a pollutant can group several typologies of effects. for example, the Plutonium, substance artificially created by the man are at the same time a mortal poison (with millionth of gram, if it is absorbed and integrated in our organization) from its particular properties as an heavy metal, but it also acts like alteragene of DNA or of ARN from its radioactivity

  • There exist polluting primary educations and polluting secondaries.
The breakdown product, Residue S or Métabolite S of a pollutant can also be pollutants, with a capacity Toxique sometimes increased.

See too

External bonds

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