How unhealthy water affect our health

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Pollution of Earth’s groundwater affects humans immensely as modern societies require enormous amounts of water.

Global use of freshwater is estimated to be a massive 4.3 trillion cubic meters annually. That’s 530 tons per person a year or 1500 liters daily. Most of the water is used in agriculture (70 %) and industry (20 %) with households responsible for the remaining 10 %.

To illustrate how the water is used for our food and products, it takes 24,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilo of chocolate; 21,000 liters to produce one kilo of coffee beans, 12,100 liters to produce a smartphone, 15,500 liter for 1 kilo of beef, and 2,500 liters for a cotton t-shirt. 

When our groundwater is polluted, we are therefore polluting many aspects of our everyday lives.

Dirty water kills

Unclean water and sanitation are responsible for more lives over the past century than any other cause. Dirty water causes the death of a human being every 10 seconds and 850 million people don’t have access to clean drinking water.

Humans have established communities and flourished around sources of clean, drinkable water since the beginning of time. It’s vital to our survival. 

Do you know that you can survive several days without food but not without water? It’s heartbreaking to know that millions of people worldwide do not have access to this most basic need, and are dying of thirst and water borne diseases.

Freshwater sources around the world are threatened by water pollution. Not only are we managing our resources poorly through wastage, we are also thoughtlessly dirtying it.

The main sources of water pollution are the following:

  • Discharge of untreated Raw Sewage from households and factories
  • Chemicals dumped from Factories
  • Agricultural run-offs that make their way into our rivers and streams and groundwater sources
  • Urbanization
  • The rising use of synthetic organic substances
  • Oil Spills
  • Acid Rain caused by the burning of Fossil Fuels
  • Human littering in rivers, oceans, lakes and other bodies of water. Harmful litter includes plastics, aluminum, glass and Styrofoam.

Almost everything that is a byproduct of our civilization is polluting our drinking water. Governments, through various Clean Water Acts and water resource policies have sought to regulate the discharges of pollutants in the water to minimize pollution and contamination. From 1990 to 2006, an additional 1.6 billion people had access to safe drinking water. But we are not acting fast enough and most factories still find a way to dump their toxic wastes in the sea, unseen.

 

Media Contact:

Allison Grey
Journal Manager
Journal of Infectious Diseases and Diagnosis
Email: jidd@microbialjournals.com