GCSE Geography | UK Industry and the Environment (UK Economic Futures 5)

As countries develop their economic activities will start to have an increasing impact on the environment and the UK is no exception to this, with factories emitting harmful pollutants which affect air quality, industries releasing toxic chemicals into waterways, and quarrying scarring the landscape.

How does each sector affect the environment?

Primary sector

Mining and quarrying involve noise and dust and can cause vibrations in the local area, which has an impact on wildlife. Quarrying leaves huge scars on the physical landscape, and mining results in huge spoil heaps of waste material - both of these affect the visual landscape. These raw materials need transporting after extraction - this increases the amount of heavy lorries on the roads, which has an impact on local communities and affects air quality. In recent years the government has also trialled fracking to extract natural gas stored in rocks below the ground, but this has resulted in minor earthquakes (see separate study notes).

In addition, farming in the UK involves chemical fertilisers and pesticides which often get washed into local waterways, resulting in eutrophication - this increase in nutrients causes algae to grow rapidly which then depletes the water of oxygen, so there is far less for other marine life. Hedgerows are also removed to make way for bigger fields which destroys habitats of many small mammals and birds.

Secondary sector

Factories may release pollution into the air or water, which has a huge impact on air and water quality, and it can also affect soil quality if chemicals are washed into the ground. Waste from manufacturing production may be sent to landfill sites which is environmentally harmful. Factories and processing plants are often large and may look unattractive, so they have a visual impact on the landscape, such as the chemical processing plant at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire which is pictured below.

Currently the Environment Agency in the UK monitors these primary and secondary industries and can fine private businesses if pollutants are released illegally. In addition, locating factories on business parks means they are away from residential areas, reducing their visual and noise impact.

Tertiary sector

Shops usually encourage people to buy as much as they can, leading to a boom in consumption, which some see as a wasteful way to use natural resources. Shops also produce waste, and people living near big shops may find them ugly and noisy. However, more recently supermarkets have limited their deals so that customers aren’t encouraged to over buy (i.e. BOGOF) and are improving their rates of recycling.

Tourism and international business also leads to a huge amount of carbon dioxide emissions through air travel.

How can we make industry more sustainable?

The Environment Agency could set much stricter targets for water quality and air pollution limits and these should be voted into UK law (recently MPs voted against such an amendment to an environmental bill asking for water companies to take greater responsibility for pollution - contributed to the sewage scandal of Summer 2022).

Companies should face much bigger fines if they are caught causing pollution and environmental damage - in 2021 Southern Water was fined over £90 million for illegally dumping raw sewage into waterways on a number of occasions. However huge companies can afford these fines.

Chimneys should be fitted with filters that remove key pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, so they release less harmful gas into the atmosphere.

Once quarries are no longer operational, they should be restored by creating lakes and wildlife habitats - there are a number of these sites in the Lake District, such as Banishead Quarry pictured below.

Example: Torr Quarry, Somerset

Quarrying causes numerous impacts on the environment - it scars the landscape, pollutes waterways and leads to the destruction of habitats. Any planning applications for quarries or mines now have to have extensive reference to sustainable development before they will be approved. Companies are expected to minimise their impact on the environment as much as they can, for example, there are strict controls on blasting and companies have to remove dust from the local surroundings, including roads. Once operations are over, they have to agree to restore the landscape to its natural state.

Torr Quarry in the Mendip Hills in Somerset is an example of where this has happened. It is a limestone quarry which employs over 100 people, generating around £15 million in the local economy annually. The quarry has been operating for 85 years providing materials for construction - at its height of production 8 million tonnes of limestone was extracted per year, however, the current figure is less than 5 million tonnes.

It is seen as a relatively sustainable operation as 75% of material quarried is transported by rail, rather than using heavy lorries which would have an impact on local towns and villages (and is often a huge source of conflict between quarries and the local community). Noise levels, vibrations, emissions of dust and water quality are all monitored on a regular basis to ensure that the quarry is not harming the local environment. In addition, in order to extend operations for another two decades the quarry has been deepened, rather than being widened which would have had a much bigger impact on its natural surroundings.

Once the quarry ceases to operate it will be restored - this includes creating wildlife lakes, planting grasses, shrubs and trees that are native to the local area, and adding characteristic limestone rocks to help the old quarry blend into the natural surroundings. Some of this landscaping work has already taken place in disused parts of the quarry.