Do you know what you do every day? You pollute! You are always polluting in some way, but you just don’t realize it. For instance, if you are driving a car, you are polluting the air because the waste gases that came out from the engine pollute the air.

Now I am going to tell you what pollution actually is. Trash and litter are forms of pollution. Trash is only pollution when you do not handle it correctly. For example, if you were to throw out a chair, would you send it to landfills or bury it underground to decompose? I know that there is a better way of getting rid of it. I will tell you all about it shortly. The second type of pollution is littering. Littering is trash you throw on the ground. It is land pollution. If it happens to get into water, it spreads poison in the water. There are other types of pollution as well.

Pollution can be harmful in many ways. For instance, the toxic materials that pollute the soil can get into the human body directly by coming into contact with the skin, by eating fruits and vegetables that have been grown in polluted soil, and by breathing in polluted dust or particles that come from the polluted dirt. What about water pollution? For example, the Mississippi River carries a lot of chemicals that are unfit for ocean life. Also, about 40% of the lakes in America are too polluted for fishing, aquatic life or swimming.

Now that we know we are polluting, we can help stop it. One way to stop pollution is to compost. Compost is when you mix food scraps with dirt, plants, wood and paper. Edgewood School has a project called Compost Crusaders. Compost Crusaders are students sitting near the compost, recycle and garbage bins, and telling people where to put things. The other way to stop pollution is to recycle. When you recycle, you give your recyclables (including that chair) to factories/facilities to make it into new things.

This is all I found out about pollution, but you must remember that there is much, much more.

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