Harmful effects caused during use of fuels:
Most of the harmful effects are due to carelessness of handling petroleum products. For example, crude oil and
refined fuel spills into sea from tanker ship by accident causes damage to natural eco-system and kill sea birds, mammals, shell fish and other organisms.
Utilisation of these fuels leads to some more harmful effects. Let us see that
• Burning fuels releases carbon dioxide a green house gas, which causes climate changes and leads to global warming.
• Coal fired power plants emits mercury, selenium, arsenic, lead in addition to green house gases which are harmful to human health and environment.
Many paints made from petroleum and heavy metals release toxic products into air. These toxic products cause a variety of health problems including heart, lungs damage, nausea and dizziness.