The North Sea and Its Problems

A rather rare pollutant comes in the form of warm water. Many people do not see any harm in discharging warm water into rivers and seas. The pollutant is normally caused by power stations where it has been used in a cooling system. This 'thermal pollution' has caused mammals and fish to gather round warm water outlets rather than migrating to warmer seas. This makes them used to this temperature and if the outlet was to fail, they would die because of the drop in temperature.
Deep-water dredging for minerals result in about 97% waste material being thrown back into the sea. This creates high concentrations of heavy metals which cut out sunlight for phytoplankton in surface waters and introduces toxic metals into food chains.
In some of these cases improvements have or could be introduced. Raw sewage or partly treated sewage could go through more thorough treatment processes. This would prevent solid items being washed up on beaches and decrease the amount of pollution dramatically. Once treated the sewage could be used as fertiliser on the land. Direct dumping could be improved by making laws which have tighter restrictions on dumping in the sea. There would need to be large fines and patrols on both beaches and at sea to enforce the laws. Atmospheric pollution could be improved by having tighter laws for factories, reducing car exhaust fumes by limiting traffic, and, reducing the amounts of fossil fuels being burnt.…