The difference between "pollute" and "contaminate"
By lucy67
@lucy67 (819)
China
September 17, 2007 11:05pm CST
These two words seem to have the same meaning. I don't know if there is any difference between them. Would you tell me? I'm a Chinese teaching English in a school. I meet these two words when I teach a text on environment protection. Thank you for your help.
1 person likes this
3 responses
@thefuture (1749)
• Nigeria
18 Sep 07
Hi Lucy67! I was able to go for a little search, but couldn't just see any difference between them. The two words gave me same meaning like "Make dirty, defile, poison". To me, the two words are same, but not 100%. Thanks
@raijin (10345)
• Philippines
18 Sep 07
I think the very thing that fdiffer at is the way they are used, like words that is proper for the sentence.
For me, pollute is those made by men. Contaminate is, accidental in nature. It can be man-made, or either natural cause.
Hope this helps, good day!;)
@pilbara (1436)
• Australia
18 Sep 07
I would agree that they are very similar - both mean exposure to toxic, unclean or harmful substances.
The only thing I can think of is that when we talk about the environment we use the terms pollute or pollution. However, we use the terms contaminant, contaminate or contamination when we are talking about things that we eat or drink.
So for example sea water can be polluted but a well that contains drinking water would be contaminated.
I hope this helps.
