Products from oil (petroleum products) help us do many things. We use them to fuel our airplanes, cars, and trucks, to heat our homes, and to make products like medicines and plastics.
Even though petroleum products make life easier finding, producing, moving, and using them can cause problems for our environment like air and water pollution. Over the years, new technologies and laws have helped to reduce problems related to petroleum products.
Exploring and drilling for oil may disturb land and ocean habitats. If oil is spilled into rivers or oceans it can harm wildlife. When oil spills from ships are the most well-known problem with oil, more oil actually gets into water from natural oil seeps coming from the ocean floor.
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Or, from leaks that happen when we use petroleum products on land. For example, gasoline that sometimes drips onto the ground when people are filling their gas tanks, motor oil that gets thrown away after an oil change, or fuel that escapes from a leaky storage tank. When it rains, the spilled products get washed into the gutter and eventually go to rivers and the ocean.
When a leak in a storage tank or pipeline occurs, petroleum products can also get into the ground, and the ground must be cleaned up. To prevent leaks from underground storage tanks, all buried tanks are supposed to be replaced by tanks with a double-lining.
Gasoline is used in cars, diesel fuel is used in trucks, and heating oil is used to heat our homes. When petroleum products are burned as fuel, they give off carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is linked with global warming.
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The use of petroleum products also gives off pollutants carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and unburned hydrocarbons that help form air pollution. Since a lot of air pollution comes from cars and trucks, many environmental laws have been aimed at changing the make-up of gasoline and diesel fuel so that they produce fewer emissions.