Talk:Pollutant

message: this article has a NPOV problem.... "nuclear - fossil" ????? "radiation will escape" ?????? ? ? --Kvuo 22:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  wha? 

message: Contrary to what the article states, uranium is not a significant radioactive waste problem (see the uranium article). Its very long half life of 4.5*109 years means that its radioactivity is very low, beacuse very little will decay at any time (this value is for U-238, uranium has other isotopes, but still the total activity of a sample of natural uranium, the activity of U-238, U-235, U-234, and their decay products is relativly low). Uranium emits alpha rays, which are easily blocked by a peice of paper or the skin. While it does emit radon gas, the uranium is there naturally in the ground, so uranium mining does not have a important impact on this. It is the various fission and neutron capture products of uranium that are the concern, but most of these do not have half lives on the order of millions of years (Sr-90 is 28.78y, Cs-137 is 30y, and some others are longer, but most not on the order of millions of years (and those that are have half lives so long they are not very radioactive and are therefore relativly non-toxic (compared to other radioisotopes in the waste))). Polonium 19:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed 

message: "Many pollutants have a poisonous effect on the body. Carbon monoxide is an example of a substance which is damaging to humans. This compound is taken up in the body in preference to oxygen, causing the body to suffocate and drop dead." :p Thats REAL Scientific... Plz Fix It
Offensiveandconfusing 17:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uhh... It Dont GO That way 

message: For someone not familiar with pollutants and polution this article is confusing. 
It would be easier to understand, if there is a table for typical pollutants, their use and only a brief description of the effect at the beginning.
For example
CFC  - used as "Kühlmittel"* - destruction of the ozon layer, greenhouse effect
CO   - produced by the incomplete combustion of organic materials - severe health effects, suffocation
asbestos - used for insulation - breast cancer
and so on.
The effect can be described more in detail later in the text or in seperate articles. These articles might be already existing.
Maybe it would be also important to distinguish between pollutant and poison. 
* sorry i don't get the english word at the moment.  
--Stefan da 20:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I would suggest major revising 

message: I think pollutants must be part of the Pollution article (maybe a subsection). The reasons are obvious. Wikipedia should be as concise as possible and not spread out in different articles which talk about the same thing. We are trying to gather information and make it clear for people not spread it all over Wikipedia. The Vindictive 14:36, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have recreated the page. The topic is important enough to warrant its own article. I feel that WP can be concise AND have have many articles with a degree of overlap. Note that not all pollution is from pollutants. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a never-ending question.  The general test for whether a sub-topic of an article warrants its own article seems to be whether there is sufficient material on the subtopic to justify making it a self-contained article.  --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 15:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: About the merger

message: I think the description of greenhouse gasses as pollutants should be in the article; it's misleading in the #See also.  I'll see what I can do.  Perhaps quoting the "new" EPA regulations would be a start.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greenhouse gasses 

message: This article has a subsection on “fund pollutants” but not “stock pollutants”.  Perhaps both should get subsections?  Or maybe we should change the header from “fund pollutants” to “fund pollutants vs. stock pollutants”?  Stock pollutants are mentioned in the first four sentences of this article after the lead.
Also, there seems to be some subtly and nuance in these two intertwined concepts.  Here is what a reliable source says:
[1]Lindeburg, Michael. PE Environmental Review, p. 395 (Simon and Schuster 2019).
Apparently, a fund pollutant only causes pollution after the assimilative capacity is reached, correct?  And ditto for a stock pollutant.  This is a subtle concept: a pollutant that does not currently cause pollution, and may never cause pollution especially if it is a fund pollutant. This point deserves some clarification in this article.  Incidentally, this talk page section extends a discussion begun at another talk page, namely talk:History of climate change science. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:53, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:35, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stock pollutants vs. fund pollutants