Alyssa Leon-Guerrero
September 14, 2015
AP Environmental Period 4
Water Pollution
There are 326 million gallons of water on Earth. Less than 3% of all this water is fresh water. Water is very important to our lives. We use it for nearly everything- drinking, food preparation, laundry, dishes, hygiene, etc. A myriad of human pressures are being exerted both directly and indirectly on ecosystems across the world. Once water is polluted, it is a complicated and difficult to extract pollutants from the water.
Many of our oceans are polluted with plastic every day. Plastics pollute the water; it takes four hundred and fifty years for plastic to decompose in the water. Also, many companies use plastic and people throw it into the waterways without knowing the consequences of it. Because water can float and be carried by the wind, it can cause unsuspecting harm to creatures hundreds of feet from where it was originally dumped. Such plastic waste includes bags, bottles, cups, and utensils. Plastic is literally around us all day long from the plastic framed computers to the plastic mechanical pencils. Plastic is an epidemic.
Another culprit that is polluting our waters the chemical glyphosate, which can be found in popular weed killer Roundup product from Monsanto is making its way into groundwater across the nation through widespread contamination of aquifers, wells, and springs. The Explosive study confirmed Monsanto’s Roundup was behind 41% of the 140 groundwater samples taken from Catalonia, Spain were actually above the limit of quantification. Findings conclude glyphosate doesn’t actually break down in the environment it is continuously building up in the concerning quantities. It is becoming more apparent glyphosate is polluting groundwater in alarming quantities, enough to pose a significant threat to the purity of drinking water whenever use. The pollution of glyphosate in our waters has unknown risks to our environment and to our health.
Many municipal water systems are polluted with hydrofluorosicilic acid. Our government allows this toxic industrial waste by-product for more than 60 years. This practice resulted in not only polluting our drinking water, but also harming