Air Pollution this New Year
In this post, nobody influenced to do it, nobody sent me an e-mail to promote anyone. I created this post because it's a good topic that anyone should know especially for this season.
Last year, I was alone in the house celebrating my New Year's Eve. At 8PM, I was already on my bed while watching TV, updating my Facebook and twitter for my friends. 30 minutes before 12 midnight, I woke up because of the noise and explosions created by the fire crackers and some other ways. I have no choice but to go out and look on those gorgeous lights in the sky forming different patterns.
Department of Health actually created several programs just to minimize the accidents in this season. From TV, print ads and other campaigns, were some of the part of the programs which gives a great impact to lessen the accident. According to DOH, the programs they created had a positive results (as of December 26, 2012.)
Accident is not the only problem that we are encountering in this season, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has the same issue because of the Pollution created by the fire crackers. I tried to research about the components of fireworks, and this includes potassium carbonate, potassium sulphate and potassium sulphide, together with the un-reacted sulfur. Those components give a solid reaction when mixed to the air during the explosion that was the main reason why early in the morning of January 1, 2012, I saw this smoke-like or fog-like in many areas.
According to Department of Health, that smoke-like particles is called SMOG. Here in the Philippines, Smog can be characterized as air pollution which mostly happened every New Year due to the particles coming from fireworks. The word Smog came from the words smoke and fog which refers to smoky fog. It is formed in the lower part of the atmosphere which is above the Earth's surface. It is formed when the pollutants mixed into the air forming this yellowish-brown haze.
But, how does Smog affects our health? Those harmful particles mentioned above are harmful for both animals and human respiratory system. It can affect the health of those people with heart and lung conditions like emphysema, bronchitis and asthma. It can inflame breathing passages, it decreases the capacity of the lungs to work, it causes for shortness of breath. It can also affect the eyes and nose resulting to irritation, the protective membranes of the nose and throat dries out.
New Year is the biggest celebration every year as part of it, creating noise is one of the traditional ways that we are doing. We actually have different ways like: hornpipe (torotot) karaoke, and other things that can create noise. This traditional way have a huge impact to our culture, but as of now, we need to consider the fact that we need to take good care of our mother earth for the future generation.
