WATER POLLUTION: A HINDRANCE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH
Water is an essential element of life without which nothing can be done. Water is very useful to living organisms. Science has proven that water contains 11.19% hydrogen and 88.81% oxygen, meaning oxygen cannot only be gotten from trees but from water too. Following the importance of oxygen to living organisms, one can imagine how important water is to living organisms.
Research shows that the earth is made up of 71% of water and the oceans hold 96.5% of all earth's water, meaning the earth's land is 29%, this means that God in his intimate wisdom considered the importance of water when creating the universe.
But the question here is, can water serve it's full purpose when not clean or how would living organisms survive when all of earth's water bodies are finally polluted?
Due to urbanisation and industrialization, clean water on earth is 2.5% out of the 71% of earth's surface covered by water. Around 70% of industrial waste is dumped into water. 80% of water pollution is caused due to domestic sewage. More than 6 billion pounds of garbage, mainly plastic end up in the oceans every year.
This now boils down to the negative effects of water pollution, how would the earth survive with polluted water bodies? Polluted water causes people to fall ill which gradually leads to death, research showed that, water pollution killed 1.8 million deaths in 2015. People contracted waterborne diseases like cholera, polio,malaria, typhoid, anaemia and many others kill people every year. Diarrhoea, which is caused by dirty water and poor toilets kill a child under 5 years every 2 minutes.
Studies have shown that, some 80% of the world's waste water is dumped, largely untreated back into the environment polluting the rivers, lakes and the oceans. This go a long way to affecting acqua life. Some fishermen use chemicals in fishing making it dangerous to human life. Water pollution according to statistics kills 1 million seabirds and 100 000 sea mammals every year.
According to the World Bank, cost of clean water is $1.50 billion a year. The high cost of clean water risks jeopardizing the ability of countries to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of providing access to safe and affordable sanitation for all by 2030. With this, one can imagine how water pollution is really affecting the economic standard of countries.
Ending water pollution and saving our water bodies is an individual responsibility. Each and everyone of us must be responsible and take charge of keeping our water bodies clean, saving human and acqua lives and safe the economy for a better living.
ATTY LAMIN RUKAYATU-
Watch our YouTube digital story on Water Pollution in Ghana
Listen to the most recent episode of my podcast: WATER POLLUTION IN GHANA-GROUP 4
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