The idea and danger of pollution has long been an issue in the worlds

community. A lot of alternatives have been proposed to counter this alarming

issue. In order to understand the crux of the problem, the interpretation of
pollution should be looked upon thoroughly and the impact it has on society
as well as what influence does society have on the understanding of
pollution.
It is established that the idea of pollution could be separated to various
means of interpretation, a technical definition and a non-technical definition.
In order to analyse the interaction between the impact of pollution and
society, both of the interpretation of definitions should be thoroughly
explored. It is noted that under the technical interpretation, the idea of
pollution would be addressed in from two different meanings, one from a
technical legal sense and another from a holistic view in legality. Whilst the
non-technical definition shall address the meaning of pollution from a cultural
perspective.
Section 2 of the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 defined
environmental pollution as any sort of air, water or land pollution which
could give rise to harm towards the health of human beings, quality of
environment or damage to property.

In a given popular context, pollution

have always been tied with environmental issues. The general meaning that
could be derived from this context is any contamination or impurities that
could inflict poisonous harm on humans activity or environment whether
done excessively or not. Pollution of this kind is contributed physically. The
technicality of this meaning is seen to be parallel with the definition of the
1999 Act. The portrayal of physical pollution could be seen in daily
interactions, predominantly in the industrial area whereby tons of
hazardous smokes are being produced every day.
Pollution has been treated separately previously with different legal rules
regulating the pollution of air, water and land. Since the first Earth day, it is
noted that a string of legislation has been developed particularly in the

1970s and 1980s to combat the rising global concern on the state of the
Earth. Classification of legislation which are aimed to address various
environmental media specifically and separately is prevalent through the
introduction of various EU Directives for water pollutant control, i.e Shellfish
Directives1 and air pollutant control, i.e Large Combustion Plant Directives 2.
In addition to the classification of environmental media, different legal rules
also are subject to apply differently at State and European Union levels. This
is evident in the legislations of Control of Pollution Act 1974 at the UK level
and EU waste legislation3.
The administration of environmental law is often applied through the process
of simplification of the environmental issues. This specific environmental
media approach has given ways to a fragmented regulation then after
introducing the end of pipe regulation. This sort of regulation is reactive in
nature. The end of pipe regulation refers to a method used to eliminate
unwanted contaminant formed in any of the above mentioned environmental
medias. It involves the control of pollutants produced by any industrial
harmful process and, typically, implemented at the last stage of the process
before the remaining waste would be disposed4.
An example of such regulation is the implementation of fabric filter on the
factory chimney to remove harmful alkaline dust to reduce the emission of
harmful dust into the air. Another issue would arise as to the disposition of
the dust accumulated on the filter. The emission of harmful dust is prevented
on the first stage (through fabric filter) however it is agreed that the filter
cake would need to disposed eventually and the idea of controlling pollution
1 Directive 79/923/EEC [1979] OJ L281/47
2 Directive 88/609/EEC [1988] OJ L336/I
3 Council Directive 75/442/EEC on Waste [1975] OJ L194/39
4 E Fisher, B Lange, E Scotford, Environmental Law Text, Cases, and Materials
(Oxford University Press 2013) 730

failed miserably. The concept of end of pipe regulation in nature does not
resolve the underlying issue but rather pushes it away making it jump from
an environmental media to another. This could be the fact of classifying
specific environmental media in the beginning which lead to the failure to
see the interlinking of environmental media to each other. Therefore, the
vision of promoting a better and cleaner technology for the environment has
failed. The Environmental Protection Agency in its 1993 Pollution Prevention
Policy Statement5 had admitted that the end of pipe approach is less
effective whilst time and money consuming. In the statement, it was also
suggested that law makers should place its target upstream focusing in the
prevention of pollution at the beginning stage.
Another regime had come to light which seek to depart from the above
reactive approach. The regime promotes the idea of holism to be
perpetuated in environmental regulations. Holism promotes the importance
of having the regulations to reflect the laws of nature. Cullinan in Wild Law 6
suggested that in order for holism to be effectively incorporated the whole
humanity should agree upon the purpose of human governance system is
that to help facilitate a role which plays a mutual part within the Earths
community. It is submitted that Cullinans view towards holism is still farreaching as he promoted the idea of Earth jurisprudence in addition to fully
abandoning our current principle of human governance system. An idea
which humanity itself is not ready to commit. Maybe yet, humanity should
reform its approach by experimenting with various innovation of ideas as
Elliot called upon the adoption of evolutionary strategy. 7 Elliot further
5 EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency, Pollution Prevention Policy
Statement <https://www.epa.gov/p2/pollution-prevention-policy-statement>
accessed 1st May 2016
6 C Cullinan, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice (1st edn, Green Book 2002) 30
7 D Elliot, Toward Ecological Law and Policy in M Chertow and D Etsy, Thinking
Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy (Yale UP 1997) 173-174

provided a more intricate details as to what should be taken into account

with the regards to environmental control which at present is set by
centralized political powers in light of Cullinans progressive view.
It is worthy to note that the context of pollution should not be only limited to
a specific area of interpretation. Given a second look at the legal
interpretation of pollution it is noted that the underlying principle could also
be applied socially. An example that could construe this is the concept of
moral pollution. The concept is arguable derived from the belief of religion
whereby moral values and ethics are essential fundamentals and disruption
of any two are frown upon. Moral pollution is commonly visualised in the
form moral impurity or corruption. This type of pollution is often subject to
the world of politics and business. Moral corruption in politics is selfexplanatory itself and often related to the ill-conducts of politicians. This is
the same in business but is of the doings of company officials. It is also
suggested that moral impurity in business could also interlinked with
physical impurity i.e. a corrupted company agent may contribute to water
pollution with unmonitored and improperly discharge of toxins to minimize
cost. An example to justify this statement is the 2014 Flint Michigan Water
Crisis.
Flint River had faced with a lead contamination problem which had caused
the tap water to be undrinkable and other serious of health problem which
had been inflicted towards its residence. The lead pollution was caused by
the failure of a government agency to treat the river with anti-corrosive
agent. The river had always been in poor quality 8 therefore this was the
reasoning for the treatment. The lead contamination was specifically caused
by the leaching of the home pipes to the water plant 9. It was found that
there was some fund allocated for the preservation of Flints water supply
8 Joseph M. Leonardi and William J. Gruhn, Flint River Assesment (State of Michigan
Department of Natural Resources July 2001)
<http://www.michigandnr.com/PUBLICATIONS/PDFS/ifr/ifrlibra/Special/Reports/sr27.p
df> accessed 2nd May 2016

however the fund was misused by the officials to cover shortfalls in general
funds.10

This is an example of moral pollution shown by the government

officials for instead of addressing the problem, they chose to misappropriate

the water budget. An interlinking between moral and physical impurity could
be seen from the failure of the governmental agency to treat the water with
anti-corrosive agent which is legislated by federal law. This moral clumsiness
had led to the water being more polluted with lead pollutants. This may be
due to the absence of a structured legal regime that integrates between the
pollution of environmental media and liability of governing officials.
Economically, Flint, Michigan was once stable being a thriving industrial area
until the 1980s where factory operations were significantly reduced. Poverty
was a problem and with the water crisis, the crime rate had soared. This may
be due to the lack of police officers being employed because of budget cuts,
making Flint one of the dangerous cities in America.11
Flint is an example to what would happen if hazardous pollutants are not
treated and dispose properly. It is submitted that a more structured and
integrated environmental legal regime could help to counter any Flint-like
disaster. Integrated pollution control or IPCs main idea is to integrate the
specifically fragmented environmental medias to be governed under one
legal regime. EU as such had taken the step by passing the Integrated
Pollution Prevention and Control Directive (IPPC Directive) 12 which later
superseded by Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).
9 Sara Ganim and Linh Tran, How tap water became toxic in Flint, Michigan CNN
(Atlanta, 13 January 2016) <http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tapwater-flint-michigan/> accessed 2nd May 2016
10 Gerald Ambrose, City of Flint, Office of the Emergency Manager
<https://www.cityofflint.com/wp-content/uploads/Emergency-Manager-ExitLetter.pdf> accessed 2nd May 2016
11 Christina Sterbenz and Erin Fuchs, How Flint, Michigan become the most
Dangerous City in America <http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-flint-michigandangerous-2013-6?IR=T> accessed 3rd May 2016

Article 1 of IED provided that the main idea of rules is to prevent any harmful
emissions and waste accumulation taken to protecting the environment at a
higher level. This idea is achieved by employing full coordination obligation
which requires a single and unified permitting procedure. 13 England had done
so in providing one single environmental permit whilst all pollution control is
combined under one single regulator.14 Member States are also required to
use the BAT (best available techniques) conditions when issuing and granting
a permit. It is submitted that the EU is trying to encapsulate a bit of holism
into its Directive by setting a higher requirement for a permit and also
designing the permit up to the best possible technique to counter any
excessive infringement of environment protection. The BAT standard is
governed by Article 3 and Annex III.
Despite EUs efforts to centralized the importance of maintaining the
protection of environment, however it is arguable that the IED Directive is
still not addressing the policy of pollution integration control into its full
capacity. This is prevalent especially when no express provision had been
made for a wider conception of integration. This is contrary as what was
intended in Article 11 TFEU. Furthermore, Member States are not imposed
with an obligation to impose one single permit for all environmental medias
but only are required to co-ordinate the concept of integration in issuing
license.

Therefore, it is submitted that for the Directive to be fully

functioning a stricter and express provision need to be made.

Upon analysis, a question arises as to why the above mentioned legal
regimes are unable at the beginning to set a standard that inevitable could
12 Council Directive 96/61/EC concerning integrated pollution prevention and
control [1996] OJ L257/26
13 Directive 2010/75/EU on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention
and control) [2010] OJ L 334, art 5(2)
14E Fisher, B Lange, E Scotford, Environmental Law Text, Cases, and Materials
(Oxford University Press 2013) 739

help prevent any pollution crisis like Flint, Michigan? In order to answer this
question, it is worthy to note that Mary Douglas in Purity and Danger 15 had
insisted that societal order is always governed by the fear of danger. Here we
can summarised that once society is hit with a danger then only it will react
as to counter to it. Maybe that is what happened with Flint, only when the
statistic of health illness increases then there is a move for an open
investigation to being done. Another example was the mercury poisoning
that happened in birds in Sweden where the scientist knew the mercury were
transported in the river, therefore a major cleaning up was done.16
At instance, it is seen that the intellectuality of a society influences the
perception of what pollution is. Previously, the most common topic of
pollution is sexual pollution. It is understood that a baby from an adulterous
relationship shall inevitably be dead upon child birth propagates the dangerbelief principle. This way society would also stay away from it. Douglas also
mentioned that perception of exchange of bodily fluids also could mean
danger.17 It is also worth to mention that the idea of pollution also works as a
hierarchy in the society. It is understood that the higher the persons
hierarchy in the society the more purify he is. For example, the caste system
which is practiced in India and also the concept of prostitute as a social
sewer.

Interrelating the hierarchy with the regimes, maybe a vague

answer could be provided that the reason for the inability on the part of the
regimes to adopt a fully functioning system is due to the lack of
understanding between the law makers (whom probably placed at a higher
hierarchy) and the real situations being inflicted to the common people.

15 M Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concept of Pollution and

Tobacco (Routledge 2002) 3
16 Michael Egan, Toxic Knowledge: A Mercurial Fugue in Three Parts
Environmental History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2008), 637
17 However, this was later confirmed with the emergence of the HIV virus.

In conclusion, it is established that the equation between pollution and

society is far from reaching a balanced end. The regimes provided had
certainly became progressively forward however it is important to emphasise
that in order for the idea of pollution and regimes to be successfully meet
with each other is to understand that everything links with each other and
any sort of waste would not deplete on its own and would have to go
somewhere.18

18US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Barry Commoner

and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072826/> accessed 4 th May 2016