Nearly one half of the world 's population is affected by environmental poverty, however, only fourteen percent in the United States fall in line with poverty (Mark). The poor, Hispanics, and blacks suffer the most from pollution, health, and hazardous waste issues, unlike people from other races and social classes. Taking for granted good food, clean water, and other resources necessary to survive, wealthy citizens forget that others struggle. Some areas in America are deficient in these basic resources that are necessary to live. Driving through different communities, it is clear that certain areas lack proper health needs. People in such poor communities tend to live in inadequate environmental standards. Pollution, environmental degradation, …show more content…
Pollution and poverty go hand in hand in a vicious cycle, that is far from being broken. The poor are repeatedly blamed for America 's pollution and land degradation. Poverty is the true cause of land degradation. Land degradation is any change in the condition of the land which reduces its productive potential (Ema.com) The poor are vulnerable to have an impact on health due to land degradation. The poor rely on environmental resources. About 60 percent of household incomes rely on resources such as streams for washing and drinking. Most communities are provided with safe drinking water. Usually, that is filtered. However few families provide water that has hazardous supplements in them that can be highly dangerous to a human 's body. Poor communities don 't have access to health facilities, it is hard for them to live a healthy lifestyle when their resources such as water and air are contaminated. Common diseases that are linked with land degradation are diarrhea, hepatitis, and malaria. As well as chronic respiratory diseases (Edward). Over 90 percent of the population lives in areas where air pollution exceeds the health organization limits. Air pollution continues to cause cardiovascular diseases, stroke, pulmonary diseases as well as cancer. People who live in lower economic status tend to be at greater risks. Since poor can 't afford to pay for health services there is a high death rate in the united states. For people to be healthy, they must breath clean air (Catherine). Poor neighborhoods face greater amounts of toxic exposure and pollution rather than higher economic communities. In particular, communities that live near polluting factories tend to be surrounded by pollution. These are values go down, which is why lower income families can afford the houses in the city or town. Since the houses are older they are likely to come in contact with these substances (HuffPost). Save water that is suitable for human use has become more scarce. Lots of