Trees and Their Effect on Pollution
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 13:25:48 PM America/Los_Angeles
Trees have been heralded as natural air filters that have the amazing ability to combat air pollution. But even this would be an understatement. Trees have the unique capacity to help reduce air pollution, water pollution, and even noise or light pollution!
Photo by Tadeusz Lakota
Can Trees Reduce Pollution?
You don’t need science to tell you how much fresher the air feels when you step away from urban centers into wooded havens. That crisp air that we experience when we’re in wooded areas has a couple of causes. Not only do trees “cleanse” the air of ozone and nitrogen oxides, our leafy friends also convert liquid from the soil into water vapor.
However, the effects of trees on pollution are proving to be invaluable for more than just clean air. As urbanization rapidly spreads across the globe, trees remain a vital means for dealing with ever increasing pollution and its various forms.
How Do Trees Reduce Pollution?
There are a number of ways that trees can help humans deal with the types of pollution that we face today.
- Air pollution: Though it’s known that trees produce natural gasses of their own, scientists have determined that having trees around produce a net benefit for the environment. Trees reduce the concentration of harmful pollutants such as ozone and nitrogen oxides as they’re absorbed by stomata, or their “pores”.
- Water pollution: Trees can be instrumental for reducing water pollution by reversing the effects of harmful chemicals found in runoff that seeps into rivers and other larger bodies of water. Absorbed, neutralized, or vaporized, waterborne toxins are cleared by root systems, which act like water filters.
- Noise and light pollution: Leafy trees that can offer a dense canopy are the most useful for tackling noise and light pollution. How trees combat these kinds of pollution is a bit more straightforward. As you might expect, foliage absorbs, deflects, or masks sound and light waves that can be overwhelming in densely populated cities.
When considering all the ways in which trees defend humans from different types of pollution, it becomes clear that trees are invaluable natural resources. In addition to fighting pollution, their many other functions prove them to be critical for the overall well-being of the environment, including the human population.
Bark Potty partners with 1% for the Planet to donate 1% of our sales to One Tree Planted. 1% for the Planet is a network of businesses that have committed to taking responsibility for the environmental impacts of their various industries. 1% for the Planet encourages businesses to practice corporate responsibility by facilitating donations to grassroots environmental organizations such as One Tree Planted. Each Bark Potty purchase you make further supports our collective efforts to reduce the ecological footprint that humans have left on the environment!