It’s true. We do talk a lot about pollution. That’s not surprising, though. After all, environmental pollution exists nearly everywhere. And in one way or another it affects each
of us. So really, a person can hardly avoid discussing the topic any more.

But if talk is going to accomplish anything, then we should make some effort to know, at least in part, what we’re talking about. Right?

Right.

Let’s look at pollution for a moment. It has been defined as being everything in the environment that we don’t want. (You can’t go wrong with that definition, can you?) Now since the environment includes all the conditions and influences surrounding us, environmental pollution, then, must mean many kinds of pollution. And it does. It means air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, solid waste pollution, and a few others of lesser importance, like noise pollution.

Well as you can see, pollution is a mighty big problem. Actually, it’s the biggest one that man has ever faced. On the other hand, this is only a booklet. So it can’t do much more than
introduce you to that problem.

Thus, most of the experiments on the following pages are fairly simple and concern just the major types of pollution. However, pollution is only one part of the environmental picture. So a few experiments have been added on other parts to make the picture a little more complete.

Needless to say, we all have an obligation here. Too bad the complaining soul under the trash heap (page 4) didn’t see it that way instead of waiting for somebody else to “do something about it.”