Aftermath of Industrial Pollution, Post COVID-19 Quarantine on Environment

Abstract

Human beings always stride toward the protection of the environment and global climate change at various levels. Though, due to diverse reasons our efforts were not enough. But now as the outbreak of COVID-19 has hit mankind globally, many countries are forced to implement self-quarantine, resulting in anthropogenic activities across the globe coming to a halt, especially in production/manufacturing. It has been clearly established that ever growing industrialization for the last two decades has immensely polluted the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere; also other overlooked concerns like noise pollution, soil pollution, etc., never gets adequate attention. As recently, all the activities have been seized considerably, the pollution level in the environment is expected to go down within a curtailed period. This chapter undertakes a brief and specific scenario of industrial pollution during lockdown; hence, the aim is to be focused on the dissemination of information in general, related to the current parameters regarding the status of the decreased level of industrial pollution in air, water, and soil. In the context of water pollution we have discussed the improvement of water quality in terms of change in pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), suspended particulate matter (SPM), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), heavy metal contamination in sewage as well as ground water, and biological parameters like reduction in coliforms, fecal coliforms, organic wastes, planktonic population, etc., whereas in case of air pollution it was found that there has been a sharp drop in the major air pollutants like PM2.5, PM10, O3, SO2, CO, hydrocarbons, and NO2 as compared to the pre-lockdown phase, same consequences were also obtained in case issues related to the soil pollution. Also recent observations suggest that the ozone hole at Earth’s polar regions has begun to heal. These changing statistics of pollution rate can help us in the exploration of various public and private views, which could further encourage us to adopt better pollution controlling strategies; highlighting and also examining different social, economical, and technical challenges related to industrial pollution.