I would like to start the topic with the following video which shows one of the most convenient ways of polluting our planet.
This is the uncontrollable dump of waste into the sea: personal belongings, sewage water, industrial waste, toxic waste ... We throw out everything in the ocean with the idea that this is never coming back. Unfortunately, all the waste we produce comes back much faster than an usual person can imagine, look at this:
This is the uncontrollable dump of waste into the sea: personal belongings, sewage water, industrial waste, toxic waste ... We throw out everything in the ocean with the idea that this is never coming back. Unfortunately, all the waste we produce comes back much faster than an usual person can imagine, look at this:
I have seen this sight at many beaches and the question is not how often it occurs but why it occurs. If there is a heavy rain every day, it will occur every day. It is like that because the rainwater mixes with the rest of the waste water and the overall amount of water increases above the capacity of the treatment plants. Hence, the treatment procedures are impossible and all that rainfall, sewage water, agricultural and industrial water mixed together go straight to your favourite beach. By coincidence, at many places this is the exact time when there are waves and many people jump in the ocean. This year, there were a fatality because of this http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local/Local-surfer-dies-from-infection-after--287862991.html?m=y&smobile=y and this http://www.surfline.com/community/whoknows/whoknows.cfm?id=1157
The water is the blood of the Earth, it takes the elements from one place and spreads them everywhere. The surface waters evaporate and go into our atmosphere, and later on fall as a rain. Also, from the depths of the Earth, pushed by the underground pressure the water goes up towards the surface. Finally, all these waters meet at the Earth's surface where we harvest most of the precious liquid directly by catchment or damming or indirectly trough plants and animals. Therefore, any neglected pollution is coming back to us in the form of water or food and the only way of escaping this pollution is by large scale recycling or by even more radical measures to not commercially use anything that is non-recyclable.
As water is one of the most precious ingredients of life, we have to keep our waste away from it and more importantly not poison it. In a long term global perspective there are few main causes for the pollution of our water reserves: the over-development, the polluted runoffs and the global warming. Unfortunately, many of us are still blind for this and the solution is the water quality monitoring to become responsibility of everyone. In other words, making a water sample known to the public is not harder than posting a selfie on Facebook, however, it is much more important. The good news is that even on gouverment level the problem is well known and solutions are sought-after; look at this European project http://www.smartwater4europe.com/about-sw4eu/objectives-project-timeline/ or
just google 'citizen water observation' and find 'why it is important' http://terra.nasa.gov/citizen-science/water-quality
or 'who is dealing with' http://www.geo-water-quality.org/home and http://www.earthobservations.org/index.php
However, real results are possible if and only if most of the people are involved in such practices. As a surfer who spends time in the water, I want the surf-shop to sell bacteria sampler so I would be able to post online when the water is poisonous at my local beach. I want the same to be done by the fishermen, yachtsmen, divers and all other individuals who spend a lot of time in the water basins. Otherwise, we will start eating and drinking plastic!
The water is the blood of the Earth, it takes the elements from one place and spreads them everywhere. The surface waters evaporate and go into our atmosphere, and later on fall as a rain. Also, from the depths of the Earth, pushed by the underground pressure the water goes up towards the surface. Finally, all these waters meet at the Earth's surface where we harvest most of the precious liquid directly by catchment or damming or indirectly trough plants and animals. Therefore, any neglected pollution is coming back to us in the form of water or food and the only way of escaping this pollution is by large scale recycling or by even more radical measures to not commercially use anything that is non-recyclable.
As water is one of the most precious ingredients of life, we have to keep our waste away from it and more importantly not poison it. In a long term global perspective there are few main causes for the pollution of our water reserves: the over-development, the polluted runoffs and the global warming. Unfortunately, many of us are still blind for this and the solution is the water quality monitoring to become responsibility of everyone. In other words, making a water sample known to the public is not harder than posting a selfie on Facebook, however, it is much more important. The good news is that even on gouverment level the problem is well known and solutions are sought-after; look at this European project http://www.smartwater4europe.com/about-sw4eu/objectives-project-timeline/ or
just google 'citizen water observation' and find 'why it is important' http://terra.nasa.gov/citizen-science/water-quality
or 'who is dealing with' http://www.geo-water-quality.org/home and http://www.earthobservations.org/index.php
However, real results are possible if and only if most of the people are involved in such practices. As a surfer who spends time in the water, I want the surf-shop to sell bacteria sampler so I would be able to post online when the water is poisonous at my local beach. I want the same to be done by the fishermen, yachtsmen, divers and all other individuals who spend a lot of time in the water basins. Otherwise, we will start eating and drinking plastic!