Many industries, households and individuals are unaware of their impact on the environment. Very often when companies are asked the question "what do you consider to be your major impact on the environment" their answer is "well we don?t really have much of an impact on the environment and we don?t cause pollution". Understandably pollution has a negative image, but many seem unaware of just how fundamental and intimate our relationship with the environment really is.

Task 3 Interaction with the environment takes place for each individual every moment of our lives. We can assess our own individual impacts in terms of the various elements of air, water and land. Buying groceries for example we may choose to walk, or take the car. If we take the car then fuel is used and emissions are produced that travel into the air, the complicated and energy intensive process of obtaining the fuel from oil in the first instance also has impacts on the environment. The food we buy at the supermarket is usually wrapped in paper or plastics, or put in tins and glass bottles, all of which required energy and chemicals to produce, need to be disposed of at some later date and used transport to arrive at the supermarket in the first place. Moreover the fruit and vegetables we buy are generally grown with the use of fertilizers and pesticides. List as many impacts that you as an individual have on your environment consider inputs and outputs. It may be easier to separate this into categories, e.g. personal, house, transport, work, leisure. Think about the impacts which your business or place of work might have on the environment.

The sources of pollution are as varied as the activities which mankind carries out on the planet. Although individual pollutants tend to be associated with a particular media, i.e. Air, Land, or Water, it is important to understand that they do not necessarily remain in this media and are often transported throughout the environment as a result of various naturally occurring processes.