A
person or
organization, such as a
government or
corporation, which
pollutes the
environment, usually with
toxins. Usually, polluters do this as a byproduct of
agricultural or
industrial processes.
Socialist environmentalists want government to stop polluters. This is a case of setting the fox to guard the henhouse, as governments are by far the world's worst polluters, with their nuclear weapons plants and their chemical dumps.
In contrast, free market environmentalists want the victims of pollution to be able to successfully sue polluters and recoup damages. In today's America, government prevents this from happening by forging illicit consent agreements with the polluters that release the polluters from liability.