Water is one of the most important factors essential for sustaining life. Every organism, no matter how big or small, requires water to live.
You must’ve noticed that water quality has undergone a sea change over the years. The water has gotten harder and harder.
The color of water in rivers and lakes has significantly changed. The crystal clear surface on water bodies was a thing of the past and we no longer get to see a picturesque image of a clean and perfect water body anymore.
The tap water we receive can no longer be used for drinking, and we are forced to buy separate drinking water, install water purifying devices in our homes.
Have you wondered why we are forced to go in for such applications at our homes. There is no answer for water scarcity in big cities today and people are forced to live with the bitter truth.
What is water pollution?
Water pollution is nothing but contamination of water bodies with chemicals, toxins and effluents let out from industrial establishments and factories.
These toxins contain harmful concentrations of lead, Sulphur, heavy metals and detergents in them.
Not just that, water bodies are mixed with sewage water and one can imagine the extent of dirt and filth that is contained in the waters of river bodies, thus making them highly polluted.
Pollution is tainting or forcefully mixing harmful and toxic substances into environment. These substances that endanger the consistency and integrity of the environment are called Pollutants.
Pollutants have been ever rampant since man entered the industrial ages.
The environment has been enduring the abuse we afflicted on it since ages. Industries, factories, etc. contribute to pollution on a large scale.
The daily activities that we perform, also pollute the earth due to inefficiency of the methods we use. Alarming quantities of pollutants are being produced and released.
Causes of water pollution
Speaking about water, most of the industries and factories have leftover chemical effluents. They release these residual products into primary water sources like rivers streams, lakes, fresh water tanks etc.
These residues may be a mixture of a myriad of chemically toxic substances.
The microbes present in the natural sources of water have the ability to purify the water to some extent. But the problem arises when we dump more Pollutants before the current batch of water is purified.
Purified, in this context, means oxidizing the water.
Microbes present in water have the natural ability to oxidize it. But constant human intended interference has almost nullified that ability.
In short, pollutants just overtake the good microbial activity and instead cause damage to water sources by inducing them with filth and dirt.
The activities of the microbes in cleaning up the water reduce to a low minimum or may not take place at all. Waste water from domestic sources is also often dumped into rivers. This pollutes the entire source.
Effects of water pollution
Water pollution affects us on a daily basis. The cases of water borne disease are on the rise. Since water is one of the building blocks of life, we have but no choice to consume the same water in adequacy.
The dangers of polluted water increases when people unknowingly use polluted water for daily purposes.
This mostly occurs in rural areas, where rivers are a prime source of water.
Factories set up near river bodies may be releasing effluents and people downstream maybe using the same water for drinking purposes and for other daily activities.
It is common knowledge that 70 percent of the earth is covered by water. But not all of this water can be used for drinking and household purposes.
Only a small percentage is fresh water, and most of the other share in the percentage finds itself frozen at the Poles.
The advent of pollution has further reduced the potable water resources. Water available today is way more polluted than it was ages ago.
Our quality of life is greatly affected by this. Use of polluted water causes diseases and ailments. It can be directly linked to the receding length of our lifespan.
Solutions for water pollution
Humans have realized that they have greatly affected the environment in a bad way. Everywhere, efforts are being made to conserve water.
Water treatment plants are setup everywhere. Every waste disposal station has a water treatment department, so that all the chemical and other harmful substances can be removed from water before it is let into the main source.
This has been pivotal in controlling pollution of water. Rules and regulations have been made stringent for factories and industries, regarding their effluent emission, both through the air and through water.
Domestic waste disposal techniques have been improved and proper steps taken in the right direction.
It is entirely up to us, what we decide to do, with our water sources. Global warming is becoming an ever gaping issue and a worldwide concern. There’s always fear of the rains being more infrequent and unseasonal.
What on earth do we do without adequate water. The hardships we’d have to face to obtain enough water for sustaining looks so terrible if we were to quest for a suitable answer.
The everyday tasks that we do would become incredibly difficult. We need to take measures ourselves, to save water and keep it from being polluted.
We must start conserving water in our homes. Only then will the next generation have even the slightest hope for a well-rounded future.
Solutions for water pollution
Water pollution is actually a two-fold issue raising global concerns today.
The first issue, the most common one as we know is of the contamination of water by toxins and measures to reduce the contamination and improve the quality of water.
The second one is more serious and pertains to the availability of potable water on earth after some years, putting a question mark on the survival of life on earth itself.
We talk about beautifying our lakes, restoring the cleanliness of our water bodies, removing their contaminants and making them toxic free.
Yes, this is definitely required at the moment and there have been measures taken in the right direction to make our rivers clean and clear.
Specific installations of dust collector and dirt remover equipment’s in river basins have been employed to collect waste material from river surfaces.
This is primarily to remove hard traces of waste or what we can call as visible wastes. This also takes removes unnecessary growth of phytoplankton in rivers, thus letting the river waters breathe at ease.
Regarding toxin removal from river waters, purification using reverse osmosis methods, chemical filtration methods and other treatments using distillation methods are employed to make them free from chemical residues.
Much other advancement have been achieved and successfully employed in the river basins of our country to restore the natural beauty of lakes and rivers.
The best example of river water cleaning in our country is the cleanliness drive carried out at river Ganga in the holy city of Varanasi.
The government of India took it up as a big challenge to clean the river waters at the region and was successful in achieving its mission.
Conclusion
It is only with citizen co-operation and participation that any reformative measures taken by the governments will prove fruitful and worthy of action.
We blame successive governments for not cleaning up our river beds, for not providing us clean drinking water, for not beautifying our lakes etc.
In the melee, we forget our own responsibilities of acting with care and concern.
If we visit rural areas and spot women washing their clothes, utensils and cattle in river waters, it is our duty to educate them and spread awareness about their wrong acts.
We ought to tell them that they aren’t supposed to pollute the river water.
Instead of turning a blind eye against something wrong happening in front of us, we can reach out and provide help in our own small ways to set things right instead of just blaming and complaining about our authorities.
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