Table of Contents
Environmental pollution is basically the buildup and accumulation of noxious heavy metals in the water, land and air that decrease the capability of the polluted sites to support life. The phenomenon of environmental pollution has started in 1952 when the pollutants of domestic fireplaces and factories combine with air condensation. The degradation of the surface of the earth is due to the increase in manmade activities and human population through the inappropriate waste disposal and the misapplication of the environmental natural resources. The classification of the pollution depends on the pollutants’ nature and also on the environmental components’ pollution. There are following types of pollution depends on the pollutants’ nature: water pollution, noise pollution, air pollution, land pollution, radioactive pollution, thermal pollution and noise pollution. The increase in flora is the simplest and best way to minimize the effects of all types of pollution. Shrubs, trees, houseplants, herbs garden, vegetable crops, and decorative flowers—all of these categories of plants are very helpful to us in order to protect us from the harmful effects of environmental pollution.
Literature review
Gourdji, S. (2018) states, air pollution especially by motor vehicles and many other sources of burning processes is a major problem of the present era in industrial regions with little vegetation cover and extensive impervious surfaces. Businesses which are using the wood ovens are major source of the particulates. Air quality can be improved by the increased usage of green roofs and the selection of careful extensive vegetation. Gourdji worked out to decrease the effects of the ozone(O3), nitrogen dioxide(NO2) and particulate matter(PM) level in atmosphere by the help of the careful extensive vegetation. Both the suggested plants and green roof type to reduce these pollutants in the Montreal’s zone. Green roofs category with the larger vegetation including the intensive green roofs, or trees and shrubs, remove the air pollutants from the atmosphere to a larger extent and these are advisable to be implemented on the current, new buildings. PM is excellently captured by the pines. The small Pinus strobus ‘Nana’ is considered as good candidate for the concentrated green roofs. Ozone level in the atmosphere is reduced by the Japanese Maple. Magnolias are considered as tolerant to the NO2 level.
Beckett, K. P. et al. (2000) states, trees have the capability to capture the significant quantity of hazardous particles damaging to health from atmosphere with that potential of improving the air quality locally. There are some noticeable species which are differentiated in ability of the trees to capture the pollutants particles, in such a way that conifers are considered as the best option of plantings for the purpose of pollution-control. Among the species of broad-leaved studied, those species with rough surfaces of leaves are considered as the most effective to capture the particles. Because the selection of that species to be established is the best choice to improve the efficiency of trees to capture the pollutant particles, present and future work is aimed to measure these benefits. These type of plantings proved to be the best plantings to improve the air quality on local as well as on regional level and also maximize the desired benefits.
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Yang, B. (2018) states, the decontamination mechanism of plants’ sewage is mainly integrated into three aspects. Firstly, all the nutrients are directly absorbed and utilized present in the sewage; secondly, sufficient oxygen is conveyed to the plants’ root zone necessary for the microbial growth, the reproduction process and degradation process; thirdly, the capacity of hydraulic transmission of the desired medium is boosted. The first way is mostly used to purify the pollutants. In this process Yang tried to inhibit some factors like effects of microorganisms present in rhizosphere on the sewage purification process due to the nitrification and denitrification and may other factors like the elimination of the effect of nutrients (P, N) present in the soil and also avoid the influence of the soil pH on the observation value. Therefore, this experiment can show the abilities of sewage purification of several plants.
Alsheikh, A. (2018) states, phytoremediation is an economically friendly process to remediate the polluted soil with the help of the plants in order to remove the heavy metals from the soil. Phytoremediation is the process of using the green plants to remediate the soil by removing the harmful heavy metals from the soil in order to make the environment clean. Phytoremediation of the heavy metals is distributed into three groups: 1) phytoextraction- plants accumulate the heavy metals in the contaminated soils and these plants are later be harvested for the removal of the heavy metals from the contaminated soil; 2) rhizofiltration – roots absorb heavy metals from the polluted effluents and these are later be harvested; and the last one is 3) phytostabilization—heavy metals stabilize in substrate. One major reason for the use phytoremediation process is that it is a low cost process and less maintenance is required. Some plant species can absorb the high concentration of heavy metals according to their capacities of the metal absorption. That’s why these species can be considered as the good candidates for the metal absorption and make the environment clean.
Bourdji and Beckett worked out to control the air pollution, Yand B. did experiments to control the water pollution and Alsheikh’s major focus was on the control of the land pollution. These are the three major types of environmental pollution. Other minor environmental pollutions like thermal pollution and noise pollution are linked to these major pollution. My focus will be on the control of pollution on small scales because it will be helpful to control the pollution on lager scale. Environmental pollution on larger scales relate to the environmental pollution on smaller scales. Environmental pollution can be controlled by establishing hanging gardens both in the homes and on the roads because it requires low cost and small space to establish. These hanging gardens are useful to cure the diseases, to treat waste and a way to enhance the quality of atmosphere. One major benefit of hanging gardens is that it improves the air quality by releasing oxygen and absorbing harmful ultraviolet rays coming from the sun.
Research methodology
Materials and methods
It is very important part of the research which gives a detailed account of the procedure followed during the research and the technique used by researcher in order for the completion of research. This section of research consists of research methodology and the area profile including the methods and techniques used and the specific features of the selected area. The researcher selected different types of methods and techniques for the purpose of collection of appropriate data in order to achieve his objectives. This section of the research basically includes nature of research, rapport building, key informants, observation, sampling techniques, interviews, field notes, and visual representation.
Nature of research
The research on the topic of “Go Green to Save Earth from Environmental Pollution” will be qualitative and semi-structured research. The research will be qualitative in a way that it will cover the qualities and benefits of plants to save the environment by controlling the environmental pollution. The research will be semi-structured in a way that the quantity of questions is not limited to be asked from respondents and the place of interview is also not pre-determined.
Rapport building
Rapport building is the making of good communication with the respondents in order to attain the valid and accurate information. Rapport building is also the formation of feasible environment in which respondent does feel any type of hesitation in answering the questions which are asked by the researcher. In order to make rapport building, the behavior of researcher matters a lot because some people don’t like to listen even a single word from researcher. So, it is necessary to speak in a polite and official manner to ask the questions.
To speak in mother language is an authentic source to communicate with respondents. The selected area for research is Multan and the inhabitants of Multan city speak different languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Pashtu, and Saraiki. So, researcher must communicate in mother language with the respondents. It is necessary for researcher to provide a friendly environment to the interviewers that they allow the researcher to enter their home for conducting the interviews otherwise terrorism is the major issue now-a-days and people are afraid of to talk with a strange person.
Key informants
Key informant is a person who has enough knowledge in a specific field. It also means that he/she is expert in his field. No doubt this research is unstructured because there was no qualification limit for interview because most of the people are not qualified but they have enough knowledge about relevant knowledge. Key informants become very helpful to the researcher because they have enough knowledge about relevant topic of researcher.
There is a difference between the data collected from the literate and illiterate because the data collected from the key informant is authentic and reliable and the data collected from the illiterate person may or may not be authentic. To overcome this issue, researcher should communicate with the literate person to attain authentic and reliable data.
Observation
Observation is an authentic source to collect the reliable data for research. Observation means not just seeing but it also includes the hearing as well. Observation plays a great role in the collection of relevant data and to conduct the experiments in a systematic way. The researcher will observe the phenomena of hanging gardens during the survey and collect the information about the control of pollution by plants in the form of hanging gardens and small gardens which are established by people in their homes. Some people like planting to enhance the beauty of home, some adopt planting to cure disease and other’s purpose is to keep the environment of their homes neat and clean. All of this is only observed by the tool of observation.
Sampling
Making the samples will become very helpful to the researcher to gain the relevant and authentic data on controlling the pollution by plants. Simple random sampling will suit to this type of research. Purposeful and convenience sampling techniques will necessary to complete this research because the topic of this research is scientific based and also required scientific based knowledge.
Interviews
Conducting interviews is another methodology for the collection of data about the research topic. It is basically the face-to-face discussion among two people. The interviews are based on the gender, age, name and qualification of people. The researcher will take interviews individually and in a group form. The researcher selected the semi-structured interviews for gathering information because in this type of interview, there is no limitation of asking questions.
Focus group discussion
It’s a better way to gather a lot of information in a short period of time. For this purpose, the researcher already prepared the questions about the topic. By applying this method, interpretation of the data will become easy for the researcher. Different people share their different views about the topic at the same time. This technique basically saves the time of researcher.
Field notes
The researcher also preferred to develop the field notes during the survey because the researcher does not want to skip a single idea during the interviews. In order to make the qualitative and semi-structured research reliable, the researcher want to study the population deeply. For this purpose, researcher selected the tool of field notes for gathering authentic information.
The researcher will write the concepts of respondents in a detailed manner. Later these field notes will become very helpful to write the research in a reliable way.
Visual representation and recordings
Visual representations and recordings are another useful tools which are used in qualitative research. Researcher will use this technique because the researcher wants to make her research more authentic and did not was to skip a little piece of information. For this purpose, the researcher will record the voices or interviews of respondents in voice recorder which will become very helpful for the researcher to write an authentic research. This tool will become helpful to make the concepts clear of the researcher. After recordings, the researcher will listen it again and again to gain the answers of her formulated questions.
Document analysis
Document analysis is another efficient way to select and interpret the data in order to make the collected data reliable and authentic to achieve the desired results. This method requires less time than any other methods for the completion and makes the coding easy.
Locale of study
Locale of the study is Multan region. Multan is the city of Punjab, Pakistan. It is located 30.20 latitude and 71.48 longitude. And it is situated at the elevation of 129 meters above the sea level. The population of Multan city is 1,437,230 which is making it 4th largest city of Punjab. It is operated on IST time zone, which is basically means that Multan city follows same time zone just like Lahore. Locale of the study includes the profession, way of living, education, language, culture pattern, dress pattern, family pattern, education and caste of the inhabitants.
Expected Results
To control the environmental pollution on larger scale is very difficult for a single person. But if everyone contributes to control the environmental pollution on minor scales, it will be helpful for controlling the pollution on larger scale to save the earth. If people spread green everywhere, the problem of spreading the pollution can be sort out. Hanging gardens are cheapest source to control the environmental pollution. Hanging gardens can be established in the homes as well as on the roads in order to minimize the environmental pollution including air, water and land pollution. These vertical gardens requires less space to establish than the horizontal gardens. On the one hand, hanging gardens reduce the impact of environmental pollution but on the other hand it’s a better source to use the recycled materials like broken ladders, plastic bottles, baskets, old shoe organizers, and shoe etc.
If everyone takes part to control environmental pollution, it will be helpful to reduce the pollution as well as produce the health benefits. Following benefits can be achieved by establishing the hanging gardens: Reduction in the neuro-psychological symptoms by 23% in greenery, Fatigue is reduced by 30%, Symptoms of mucous membrane are reduced by 24% in the presence of greenery, Cough is decreased by 37% and dry throat is decreased by 25%, Flushed skin is reduced by 23% in the presence of plants, reduction in physiological and psychological stress, Enhance toned moods positively, Increase in the ability of attention to re-focus, reduce mental fatigue and mental restoration, Improvement in the performance of cognitive tasks, Reduction in the pain perceptions in health care settings.
The people who prefer Desi Elaj as compare to the English medicines can be benefitted twice from hanging gardens than the people who don’t prefer. The people who prefer can grow plants of their own choice by establishing hanging gardens. They are helpful to protect the environment by providing sufficient oxygen and also act as barriers in stormy weather against air and water pollution.
Conclusion
The phenomenon of pollution has started in 1952, when the pollutants from domestic fireplaces and factories combined with air condensation and formed smog. After that government and public took steps to control environmental pollution. One major step was plantation because plants can reduce air, water and land pollution as well as other pollutions linked to these pollutions. In order to conduct research on the control of pollution by plants, I selected the survey bases research in which I will collect authentic and reliable data from public, organizations and libraries. In my point of view, if people take steps to control pollution on minor scales it will be helpful to control the environmental pollution on larger scales in order to save the earth. Go green is the best way to save the earth from environmental pollution.
