Pollution

the introduction of contaminants into an environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the EcoSystem i.e. physical systems or living organisms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution

see related Ecology

Kevin Carson on whether this represents Market Failure or Government Failure. So we have not had a free marketplace, where civil protections against pollution and other tortious activity never arose because the transaction costs were too high. What we have actually had is a state capitalist marketplace, where the state artificially raised the transaction costs of enforcing civil protections against pollution — and thereby reduced the transaction costs of pollution.