Picture this: a world with clean water. This would be a world that guarantees the 782 million people, who currently live without clean water, clean water. A world that spares half of the people in the world who are in hospital beds, because half is currently the number of people being treated for water-related illnesses. A world that saves six to eight million lives a year that are currently being lost due to water pollution (Krautz). This would be a much better world, but unfortunately, this is not the reality. According to the United Nations, water pollution is one of the biggest global threats to humanity and it comes in many forms (United Nations). Water pollution negatively impact the world directly and indirectly through a deadly domino effect that is slowly destroying the Earth and its inhabitants. The United States, like other countries, has laws and regulations in place to control and clean up water pollution, but these policies are not doing enough. The water pollution problem increases linearly each year with no end in sight. One major root of the problem is that people do not realize the severity of water pollution. The mere ignorance of the issue is allowing it to continue when, if people where well-informed and made small adjustments to their everyday life, it could greatly be reversed. Water pollution has the power to significantly damage life on Earth unless everyone works proactively to prevent the problem.

Since the beginning of life on Earth, the world’s bodies of water from oceans, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, creeks and puddle have suffered from pollution in one form or another. Around the time of the Stone Age, humans transitioned from the nomadic to the agrarian lifestyle. Tribes began congregating in areas where fresh water was abundant in flowing rivers, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China so that they could irrigate their land. People flooded to these regions thus creating the establishment of civilization. Though this time changed the world forever, it also marked the beginning of water pollution. As populations grew dense in these areas, sanitation became a startling issue. Human and animal waste contaminated the water which lead to the outbreak of deadly diseases that spread from settlement to settlement (Jenssen). From this point in history to around the nineteenth century, human and animal waste was the main source of water pollution, but millenniums later marked the world’s greatest achievement and its greatest downfall, the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was the transition from hand-production manufacturing methods to machine-driven manufacturing processes that erupted out of Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. During this time, burning fossils fuels, such as coal, became the new way to power life which had dramatic, negative impacts on the natural world. Mass-producing plastic and the oil industry were two other products of the Industrial Revolution and are some of the largest contributors to the world’s water pollution problem. Since the problem is linearly on the rise, most countries have laws and regulations restricting water pollution in efforts to reduce the issue, especially in the United States. Though these laws are in place and enforced, they are failing to decrease the amount of pollution that enters the Earth’s bodies of water. A reformation in the policies surrounding water pollution in the United States, adjustment to everyday life are practical steps that can be made to decrease water pollution which will save life on Earth.

Surface waters, like oceans, rivers, lakes, lagoons and ponds, are the most apparent to the average person, because it is what people encounter the most. Hazardous substances that come in into contact, dissolve or mix physically with these bodies of water are called surface water pollutants (Krautz). Surface pollution contaminates the water that people swim and boat in as well as the home to the millions of aquatic animals caught and consumed each year. This type of pollution can be anything from trash to household chemicals to toxic runoff from highways. One of the biggest contributors to surface pollution is trash. 

The average American generates 4.4 pounds of trash per day and 1,606 pounds per year which translates to approximately 254 million tons of trash per year just by the United States alone. Only half of that trash ends up in landfills (Chen). So, where does the other half go? Scientists believe that 40% of the trash produced by Americans each year ends up in world’s water ways, specifically the ocean (Chen). Plastic is the main form of trash that ends up in water because not all of it is recyclable. 

The earliest plastics were made from plant and animal materials that are biodegradable, but the first synthetic plastic was created in the early twentieth century. This new plastic was durable and did not deteriorate—at all. Plastic created in the 1920’s is still fully intact and residing somewhere on the Earth and will be there until the end of time. One of the major problems with plastic the chemicals in it that make it so strong. Plastic contains harmful chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), bisphenol A (BPA), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that leach from the plastics and are absorbed by aquatic animals, plants, coral and the ground (Plastic Paradise). Eventually, those chemicals end up in humans through consumption of aquatic life, plants that were watered with contaminated water, or even by consuming the “treated” water itself. PCB is a chemical that directly causes cancer, miscarriage in women, low sperm count in men, premature birth, cognitive impairment and disrupts thyroid function. DDT causes is a neurotoxin that mimics estrogen and causes sexual skeletal disorders, mental disorders and cancer. BPA causes cancer, diabetes, chromosome abnormalities, hyperactivity and impairs the immune system and female reproductive development. PAHs causes birth defects, childhood asthma, premature birth, behavioral problems and heart malformations (Chen). The majority of aquatic life have one, if not all, of these chemicals in their bodies. That does not seem like a likely statistic to the average person, but that goes back to the lack of knowledge most people have on water pollution. The ocean is filled with plastic. There is even a six million square-mile area in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) that is entirely consumed by plastic. This patch was formed by one of the ocean’s large systems of circulating currents, called a gyre. The currents form a giant circle that pulls any suspended and floating debris to the center.  Most of the waste that makes up the patch comes from coastal cities in North America, South America and Asia, but pieces from Europe and Africa have found their way there. This patch alone is responsible for most of chemical contamination in the Pacific aquatic life and the Pacific is one of the world’s major exporters of seafood (Plastic Paradise). The probability of someone consuming seafood from the GPGP region containing a harmful chemical is high. 

Carbon dioxide emissions are another source of water pollution. At least one-fourth of the carbon dioxide that is released by burning fossil fuels get dissolved into surface water and causes ocean acidification (Bennett). Ocean acidification is when the pH of water decreases causing the water to become more acidic due to an increase in carbon dioxide in the water. Since the Industrial Revolution, the pH of the ocean has fallen by 0.1 pH units which seems small, but it is a significant change because the pH scale is logarithmic. When the carbon dioxide dissolves into water, it transforms into carbonic acid which is a skeletal growth inhibitor (Gronewold). Aquatic life that grow shells and coral are directly affected because the increase in carbonic acid decreases the skeletal growth process. The carbonic acid also causes the coral reefs to become frail and die. Coral reefs are autotrophs that produce a fair amount of the ocean’s oxygen and they are home some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth—earning the nickname “the rainforests of the sea” (Johnson). Destruction of the coral reefs has a domino effect because it causes the marine life that lives on the reef to die out, thus altering the food chain. Coral reefs provide food for more than 500 million people globally, therefore if all the coral reefs were to disappear, it would cause a major seafood shortage. Carbon dioxide emissions need to be more tightly regulated for the sake of the 75% of coral reefs that are endangered by ocean acidification (Bennett). 

The world is so dependent on fossil fuels, it is not currently realistic to completely do away with burning coal and gas. Unfortunately, most of the leading countries in fossil fuels are capitalist countries who rely on industry to drive their economies and they are not as willing to convert to sustainable energy. In addition, it would take decades to devise and enact a plan that would allow the Earth to run on sustainable energy efficiently and effectively. Since this is the case, there are a simple few ways to target this issue like installing sustainable energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) into homes and getting involved in organizations that lobby to Congress about funding for public transportation and tighter regulations on fossil fuels.

Another form of surface water pollution is oil from off-shore drilling rigs. One of the most infamous oil spills occurred on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the Deepwater Horizon rig. It was caused by a wellhead blowout that released 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf (Christine). The oil polluted the shores of the Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.  The beaches, marshes and surrounding water ecosystems were flooded with oil that causes millions of aquatic life, birds and plants to die. The destruction of these ecosystems turned the once lush coastline into dead-zones, areas where oxygen is depleted and therefore no life can survive. The United States’ coast of the Gulf of Mexico was home to some of the lead-producing fisheries prior to the spill, but after, they were put out of business. It caused a food shortage for the coastal cities and the repercussions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are still being dealt with today. The oil spill also lead to an increase of 40 times the usual amount of PAHs in the water (Christine). Those PAHs have diffused throughout the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, poisoning aquatic life. 

Agricultural water pollution comes from pesticides and fertilizers used for commercial farming. Pesticides and fertilizers contain harmful chemicals like DDT, for their insecticidal properties and heavy amounts of nitrate. Agricultural pollution disrupts the nitrogen cycle which is vital to life on Earth because it is how nitrogen is transformed and circulates throughout the marine, terrestrial and atmospheric environments. When the nitrogen cycle is disturbed, it has a devastating effect on aquatic and terrestrial life called eutrophication (Billow). Eutrophication is when a body of water is overly saturated with nutrients, specifically nitrate, and it causes an increase in the nitrogen levels. When nutrient levels are too high, algae rapidly grows and blocks the sun from the aquatic plants and phytoplankton which need sunlight to produce oxygen. With a sun blockage, oxygen levels deplete, thus killing all aquatic life and turning that body of water in a dead-zone (Krautz). Excessive algal blooms also produce toxins that are harmful to humans. These toxins can be ingested accidentally through eating shellfish, oysters, clams and crustaceans as they are vectors for algal toxins. Some of the side effects of these toxins include: vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, mental confusion, memory loss, disorientation, muscular paralysis and sometimes death (Krautz). The commercial farming industry has received warnings for their use of harmful chemicals in the past but once again, it is an industry that supports the economy of capitalist countries. The best way to fight agricultural pollution is by supporting organic produce distributors that do not use harmful chemicals. When going up against an economic powerhouse, sometimes the best things that can be done are the little things.

These types of water pollutants can be treated through water-treatment plants, but the reality is, 2.5 billion people do not have access to these water-treatment facilities (United Nations). This means that almost half of the world’s population lives with inadequate sanitation. Most people in developing countries cannot afford to have wells dug for cleaner groundwater, so they must resort to polluted surface water. Chemicals might seem like the biggest threat to human health, but for those 2.5 billion people, it is as simple as human and animal excreta that is causing their lack of clean water. Open defecation leads to the spread of diseases such as: cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid. Water-borne diseases take the lives of 782 million people per year; that is more than double the population of the United States (United Nations). People in developed countries, who have access to clean water, can make the lives of those without better. There are countless organizations that people can get either directly or indirectly involved in to make small, but significant changes in other’s lives. From donations to mission trips, any kind of support helps.

Realistically, shutting down factories and stopping the mass-use of pesticides in commercial farming is not likely ever going to happen. There are just too many people on the Earth to sustain and as well as the greed for capital gain since the energy and food industry are two of the largest in the world. Researchers estimate that it would cost approximately $489 million a year to clean up just the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—and that is only the cost for boat time (Plastic Paradise). Unfortunately, solving water pollution is not at the top of Capitol Hill’s list of problems but everyone can make small changes to their everyday life to slow down the rate of water pollution. Just imagine if everybody in the United States followed these three simple steps daily: reduce, reuse and recycle. It may be a cliché phrase but it has been proven by scientist to be the most effective way at preventing water pollution. If everybody reduced their regular trash production, think about what the world could look like a year from now—much cleaner. But what about those people in developing countries who lack clean water? Sadly, it is the job of their governments to fix their sanitation problems but people can still contribute to organizations and missions that go to developing countries. Many organizations exist that are designed to raise money to build wells in villages of third-world countries. All it takes is a bit of research and a small donation. With 7.5 billion people on the Earth, it is almost impossible to make a drastic difference alone, but if everyone bands together and makes small changes, the world can slowly take a turn for better.
