Burning is one of the means of getting light and heat. We burn wood to get fire, we burn fuel to get energy, we burn grasses for agricultural purposes and we burn wastes to clean our surrounding. These burning have a number of effects on our environment.

Burning is the source of air pollutants. Air pollutants are various chemicals diffused into the atmosphere from both natural and man made burning that change the composition of atmospheres and affect the biotic and abiotic environment.

Burning produces various compounds toxic to the environment including nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particle pollution.

Key terms

• Objects which are capable of emitting their own light are called a source of light.
• Objects which do not emit light but reflect the light from luminous objects are called non-luminous objects.
• Natural light sources produce light naturally without any human involvement, but artificial sources of light are constructed by humans.