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I am busy writing a report where I need a word which would mean "the recipient of pollution".
Specifically I want to mention domestic sewerage which has been polluted by industrial sewerage.
The reason I don't want to describe it is because the word I am looking for should be the header in the column of a table.
thank you all for the help around here!
How about contaminated? (here meaning subjected or exposed to contamination by the pollutant)
"Victim" is more appropriate. That would be my choice if I were you. :)
Though it is not a single word,
Affected Party could work. You could substitute the word 'party' with something more appropriate to your context like households.
I don't know that a single word for this exists, and I can't think of a functional ending that can be applied well to derive one (pollutee, in my opinion, is ambiguous as the -ee ending often, but doesn't always, denote the recipient of the verb's action).
In this case, then, I'd simply recommend polluted (using the adjective as a noun) if you require a one-word answer. As suggested above, contaminated also works in the same way and for most contexts would probably be interchangeable.
