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Caption: SWE - Proceedings of the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists
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ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION AND CONTROL by Mrs. Anneli Hattari, M.Sc. Printal Oy, Helsinki, Finland INTRODUCTION During recent decades, a tremendous amount of development has been observable in every field of endeavour. Science and engineering have achieved results, of which preceding generations could not even dream. We have learned how to vanquish deadly diseases, to augment the yield of the soil, and to develop an ever-increasing number of products, designed principally to maintain the pulsating rhythm of life of the people of today and to make living easy and comfortable. The standard of living has risen at breath-taking speed. Nevertheless, the triumphal march of development has proceeded at the cost of pollution of our environment. Watercourses have to accept large amounts of industrial and residential waste waters, oil, chemicals and other waste materials. Factories and centres of population hurl huge amounts of smoke and fumes into the air. Nuclear tests pollute the atmosphere, soil and water with radioactive fallout. Hundreds of thousands of tons of various chemical pesticides are scattered each year in fields, gardens and forests, as powdered or sprayed material or as injections. Diversified products such as finely divided aerosols are sprayed in the air. What have we done, and what must we do, to prevent the pollution of our environment? Attention has been drawn to this regrettable fact only within recent years. Prohibition of pollution of the environment and its control have become a matter of general interest to public health and agriculture authorities, to chemists and physicists, to lawyers and to the whole community. It has been realized that the life of the people of today, along with that of the coming generations here on earth, is possible only if the essential conditions of our living, the water, the air and the soil, are preserved in a serviceable condition, and are contaminated as little as possible. WATER Of our natural resources, water is one of the most valuable. More than 70 per cent of the surface of the earth is covered by water. However, despite this superabundance, we suffer from a shortage of water. The major part of this substance which is so abundantly present in our environment contains salt and, as such, is unfit for use in agriculture, in industry, and by the individual consumer. The greater part of humanity exists with an actual shortage of water, 111-39
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