Our industrialized society generates an increasing amount of waste. This waste is released into the atmosphere, dumped into the water or buried into the earth. The pollution of the atmosphere is primarily caused by the combustion of fossil fuels in energy conversion devices. Some water and land pollution also occurs during the use of fossil fuels, but this problem is not as severe as that of air pollution and it is similar to that confronted by other industries (such as the chemical industry, to name just one). A pollutant is a substance – usually a harmful one – that is not a natural constituent of the environment
