Industries in the City

                                 (Picture of Powergen Located on Park and Flament Street Port-of-Spain)

Some may wonder why there are industries located in the city…..with even some in the middle of the city. The location of industries in cities is due to historical factors. In Trinidad most of the industrialization began with Sir Arthur Lewis’ idea of industrialization by invitation. This idea focused on the creation of a manufacturing sector to remove some of the dependency on agriculture. These manufacturing sectors couple with the oil and gas sector made up the bulk of the industries in Trinidad. Most of these industries were located close to ports to allow for the import and export of raw materials and goods. According to an urban model done by T.G. McGee, ports are important when considering the growth of cities. Also, Hoyt’s sector model states that cities can emanate from ports (Hall and Barrett 2012). These two models provide the evidence to substantiate the claims for the location of some industries in urban areas. In Trinidad, two major of the major ports for industries are in Port-of-Spain (POS) and Point Lisas. Obviously Point Lisas does not have city status as POS but it can be considered an urban area. The port in Point Lisas is mainly used by the oil and gas and steel industries. In POS the port is used for a variety of reasons including manufacturing.

Cities contribute greatly to global environmental problems such as pollution (Hall and Barrett 2012). Industries can be very unsustainable since their actions destroy the environment in various ways. Even industries that are focused on sustainability (biofuels) can present environment problems (unsustainable) [ Read more here http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/07/10/brazil-report-reveals-unsustainable-practices-of-biofuel-industry/]. Firstly, pollution associated with industries is immense. Various gases are emitted from industrial processes and they include: ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, lead and mercury. Those gases have impacts on the environment and some of them may include: damage to vegetation, ozone (smog) effect, acid rain and harms some organisms.

Those already listed are only the effects associated with air pollution. But land and water pollution also occurs. Some industries may dump their waste in areas of lands that are not landfills hence contributing to land pollution. These areas with the waste are eyesores, attract rodents and smell horrible but more importantly they occupy land that could be used for other purposes such as: housing (to decrease some of the high density especially in urban areas due to population pressure) or agriculture. Since the waste is usually associated with toxic materials people cannot live or plant there so the land basically goes to waste. Pollution on land like this could also lead to water pollution due to the leaching of the pollutants into ground water or run-off from these areas. The polluted waters interfere with the ecological habitat present in waterways such as ponds and the diversity is usually lost. Also, solid waste from the industries may get into the water and degrade the water quality and affect life.  

To expand on air pollution associated with industries is the fact that they emit tons of gases and heat. These gases contribute to the greenhouse effect and overall global warming. Everyone knows about global warming so I won’t talk about it too much but some information on it can be found using this link. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/

As we all know global warming in a major problem in today’s society and if it is not addressed in some way the damage that can be done will be catastrophic. In addition, the heat produced from industries that are located in urban areas contribute to the urban heat island. As stated in a previous blog post urban heat islands are metropolitan areas that are warmer than the areas surrounding it (National Geographic 2013). Heat from industries when combined with that from concrete produces an area that is extremely hot.

The government and private stakeholders claim that industries are for the good of the people with respect to the economy. But when all those negative impacts occur more money has to be spent to fix them. Solutions to improve air and water quality have to be derived, land pollution has to be cleaned up and the effects of global warming also need mitigation plans just to name a few. So in the long run governments may just be putting themselves in situations to spend income (maybe more than what industries provide). To prevent a potentially bad situation for people, countries and government steps should be taken NOW to make industries more sustainable. Industries should implement gas scrubbers and it should be mandatory for all gases being emitted to pass through them. This cleans the gases being emitted and so the effects of them are minimal. As for land pollution certain areas should be dedicated for sanitary landfills to reduce the impact it has on aesthetic of an area, smell and it can also decrease the amount of leaching.  These solutions are just a few and governments should try to implement these and more. However, it may be potentially problematic to implement some of the solutions in the Global South due to them being rather expensive. But it is important that they try to ensure that we have a future to go along with the income produced by industries.

The earth really calling out but it isn't only Wake up America.....the entire world has to wake up! Everything really does matter......everyone needs to do their part!!

References:

Leonardo Academy. Cleaner and Greener. 2013 http://www.cleanerandgreener.org/resources/air-pollution.html

Hall and Barrett,2012. Urban Geography. 4th Edition. London and New York: Routledge Publishing.

National Geographic Education Beta. 2013. Urban Heat Island. http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/urban-heat-island/?ar_a=1

Knight, Franklin and Palmer, Colin. 2000. The Modern Caribbean. United States of America: North Carolina Press.