Soil pollution is also caused by other things than just the direct addition of manmade chemicals such as runoff waters, industrial waste materials, acidic precipitates and radioactive fallout. It can appear naturally by hurricanes, landslides or erosion, but it can also be caused by humans.

This manmade causes are divided into four groups: -urbanisation -industrial waste -mining -and agricultural waste.

Urbanisation is caused by waste water created by nearby projects like the construction of dams.

Industrial waste becomes a soil polluter, when it contains toxic, flammable, nonbiodegradable substances.

With mining, non-renewable substances and valuable minerals are extracted from earth. This leads to change in composition of soil.

Grass, leaves, and chemical fertilizers like pesticides or insecticides are the main components of agricultural waste.

Soil pollution can also be separated to domestic or radioactive waste. Domestic waste includes food waste and biotic waste. Radioactive waste is produced in nuclear power plants. The disposal of industrial waste on fertile land degrades the quality of the soil. Urban waste poisons the soil and damages its fertility. These soil degradations are lowering the quality of air and water, particularly in developing countries. Soil pollutants, some of which are radioactive, enter the food chain through plants, which causes illness in our bodies to appear.

In order to reduce soil pollution, we can reduce the use of plastic, polyethene, pesticides, insecticides and chemical fertilizers. Sources: OER, Rahila Kazi