Have you ever wondered what happens to the fertilizer you put down the day before, or what happens to the trash you through away from dinner last night? Well it all goes into underground aquifers, which means you could be drinking the food that you ate last night. You could be drinking water or bathing in water that is not the purist water possible, because of pollution humans are producing. The world’s ecosystems are becoming unbalanced and unhealthy because of the pollution that humans are producing. Much of our drinking water comes from underground aquifers and many chemicals are in that water because chemicals sink underground into that water. The chemicals can cause a large amount of problems, like dead zones. The dead zone, called the Gulf of Mexico, was caused by chemicals that went into the ocean making it uninhabitable. There are many things that cause groundwater pollution like landfills, leaky sewer lines, underground storage tanks, poorly constructed wells, and septic tanks. They biggest concern in groundwater pollution is the large amount of man-made organic compounds. Small things can help like picking up after your dog when it does its business, because it is proven that dog droppings that are not being picked up by their owner is adding to the amount of bacteria in our water.(1) In fact they are the 3rd or 4th on a list of contributors to bacteria in contaminated waters. There are many types of pollution a lot of them being caused by humans. Have you ever noticed how brown our water is, in rivers and lakes? That is the effects of not taking care of our environment, and creating pollution. The same chemicals that are in groundwater can also be found in our lakes and rivers. Trash builds up in rivers over time so for example the end of the Mississippi River is carrying trash that could be from Iowa. The environments stability depends on how we treat it, so we must try to respect our environment and keep our water clean to improve