By Bisola Adeyemo
Safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene are crucial to human health and well-being.
Safe WASH is not only a prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school attendance, and dignity and helps to create resilient communities living in a healthy environment.
A polluted water source is unsafe and unfit for humans use.
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies, usually as a result of human activities, in such a manner that negatively affects its legitimate uses which reduces the ability of the body of water to provide the ecosystem services that it would otherwise provide.
Any kind of water can become polluted regardless of its size or location. And once water is contaminated, it is difficult, costly, and often impossible to remove the pollutants.
According to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), about 80 percent of global wastewater goes untreated, containing everything from human waste to highly toxic industrial discharges.
The nature and amount of pollutants in freshwater determines the suitability of water for many human uses such as drinking, bathing, and agriculture. In addition, pollution of freshwater ecosystems can impact the habitat and quality of life of fish and other wildlife.
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Pollution in freshwater ecosystems can include pathogens (largely from human and animal waste), organic matter (including plant nutrients from agricultural run-off such as nitrogen or phosphorus), chemical pollution, and salinity (from irrigation, domestic wastewater, and runoff of mines into rivers).
Pharmaceuticals, and waste also increasingly put the world’s waterways at risk, but the extent and impacts of their presence in freshwater are largely unknown.
To effectively tackle water pollution, it is important to understand what causes the pollution to occur in the first place.
A number of products used at home contain hazardous or toxic substances that can contaminate ground or surface waters, such as Motor oil, Pesticides, Household cleaners, Several medicines.
Water sources can be contaminated by poorly or untreated household wastewater, which poses dangers to drinking water and the environment. Malfunctioning septic systems release bacteria, viruses, and chemicals to local aquifers and waterways. The average household septic system should be inspected at least every three years by a septic service professional.
Contaminated groundwater is very difficult and expensive to clean up. Solutions can be found after groundwater has been contaminated but this is not always easy.
The best thing to do is adopt pollution prevention and conservation practices to protect important groundwater supplies from being contaminated or depleted in the first place.
