How Are Factories Harming Our Planet?

Factories produce a wide range of products, from animal products like meat and milk, to electronics like computers, to clothes. Each one has their own carbon footprint made through emissions, electricity use, consumption of natural resources and other factors, dependent on the type of factory. Factories can minimize their carbon footprint through implementing environmentally sustainable practices, but there are still many who have not, and these can have a profoundly negative affect on the planet.

Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion

• Chemical emissions from factories that are sent into the air through smoke stacks can adversely affect the environment. Carbon dioxide and Methane are considered greenhouse gases because of the greenhouse effect they create over our planet. They stem from burning fossil fuels, including natural gas. When they rise in the atmosphere, they trap the sun's heat inside our atmosphere, the same way a greenhouse traps heat to warm plants. Ozone depletion is potentially caused by chlorofluorocarbons, another affect of toxic air emissions. The chlorofluorocarbons deplete the amount of ozone, reducing our protection from solar rays.

Acid Rain

• Air emissions from factories can contaminate the moisture in the atmosphere, infusing water droplets with the chemicals strewn from a factory. When these water droplets return to the ground in the form of rain, the chemicals are carried back to the ground, and saturate the soil. Acid rain can chemically eat away at glass and stone, poison crops and wild plants, and contaminate potable water sources.

Soil Depletion

• Soil depletion occurs when soil is stripped of its nutrients through factory farming. Soil naturally contains a balanced amount of nutrients that feed plants, but when abundant amounts of chemical fertilizers are deposited onto the soil, it can over-saturate the ground with unnecessary nutrients, and cause it to become infertile. In addition, not rotating crops to redistribute nutrient absorption, not letting fields lie fallow to correct themselves, or interrupting natural water flow will all contribute to soil depletion.

Water Contaminants

• Water is contaminated by factories in a variety of ways. A factory may use a water source as a dumping ground for chemical waste. Chemicals may leech into the soil near a factory, and subsequently be returned to a water supply through erosion. Contaminated water can kill fish and cause destruction to eco systems, it can damage plants and crops that relied on that water source for hydration and it can turn potable water toxic.