Rumon's Docx

A Brief History of Pollution

Magnified image of Xenopsylla cheopis(oriental rat flea) engorged with blood. This flea is the transmitter of plague diseases in Asia, Africa, and South America. (Source: NOAA)

Pollution is not a new phenomenon. In fact, pollution has been a problem since the appearance of our earliest ancestors[1]. Increasing human populations have opened the door to more bacteria and disease. During the Middle Ages, diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever broke out all across Europe. These epidemics were directly related to unsanitary conditions caused by human and animal wastes, and garbage. In 1347, the bacterium Yersinia pestis, carried by rats and spread by fleas, caused the "Black Death" -- an outbreak of bubonic plague. Unsanitary conditions provided the perfect environment for the deadly bacteria to flourish.

By the 1800s, people began to understand that unsanitary living conditions and water contamination contributed to disease epidemics. This new awareness prompted major cities to take measures to control waste and garbage. In the mid-1850s, Chicago built the first majorsewage system in the United States to treat wastewater. Soon, many other U.S. cities followed Chicago's lead.

Map of the layout of sewers in Chicago at the end of 1857. Chicago built one of the first sewage systems in the United States to treat wastewater. (Source: NOAA)

Improved sanitary conditions and less disease were important factors in making cities healthier places to live, and helped encourage people to move to urban areas. As cities became more populated towards the end of the 19th century, industrialized cities across Europe and the United States were experiencing a new kind of pollution: waste from industries and factories. In 1897, a report to the Royal Commission on River Pollution detailed the gross industrial contamination of the Tawe River in Wales, noting that it was polluted by "alkali works, copper works, sulfuric acid liquid, sulfate...