Olympic swimmers and other athletes, Rio residents, and dolphins encounter a noxious stew of pathogens and pollutants in Brazil. Roughly 16 million people live around the bay, making it one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. Many neighborhoods lack proper sanitation, causing squalid water conditions, including raw sewage and extreme levels of disease-causing microorganisms in Guanabara Bay. Athletes have complained the water is littered with trash, and that it irritates their skin and causes stomach ailments. Some teams have instructed Olympic rowers to avoid splashing water on each other and to carry hand sanitizer onboard their boats. All this pollution is coming from raw sewage. Human sewage can carry a number of pathogens, including viruses and bacteria. Enteric viruses excreted in feces and found at high levels in untreated sewage are a major concern in Guanabara Bay. Also, Waterborne illnesses are a major problem for Rio residents, especially Rio’s poorest people who live near the most polluted parts of the bay and have the least access to sanitation. Eating seafood contaminated with heavy metals, industrial chemicals including PCBs, and hydrocarbons from petroleum products, also causes long-term health concern for Rio residents practicing subsistence fishing in Guanabara Bay.
0 Comments
Air and water pollution are significant environmental problems especially in Portugal's urban centers. Industrial pollutants include nitrous oxide,sulfur dioxides, and carbon emissions. In 1996, industrial carbon dioxide emissions totaled 47.9 million metric tons. The nation's water supply, especially in coastal areas, is threatened by pollutants from the oil and cellulose industries. Portugal has 37 cubic kilometers of renewable water, of which 53% is used to support farming and 40% is for industrial activity. In total, the nation's cities produce an average of 2.6 million tons of solid waste. The nation's wildlife and agricultural activities are threatened by erosion and desertification of the land. Although erosion is a natural process human land use policies also have had an effect on erosion, especially industrial agriculture, deforestation, and urban sprawl. Land that is used for industrial agriculture generally experiences a significantly greater rate of erosion than that of land under natural vegetation, or land used for sustainable agricultural practices.The rate of erosion depends on many factors. Climatic factors include the amount and intensity of precipitation, the average temperature, as well as the typical temperature range, and seasonality, the wind speed, storm frequency. Erosion is caused by “fluid flow”. Any substance, like wind, water, or ice, which flows consistently from one place to another, will facilitate erosion. Los Angeles and San Joaquin Valley cities consistently rank among the worst in the nation for air quality. In neighborhoods across Southern California, millions of people are exposed to levels of smog and soot pollution so dangerous that it may be unsafe even for a healthy person to go outside. Partnering with conservation, health, and community groups, Earthjustice is pressuring the EPA and state regulators to do their jobs and give citizens the clean air they deserve and have a legal right to breathe. Bad air quality is coming from energy use and production. Burning fossil fuels releases gases and chemicals into the air. Air pollution not only contributes to climate change but it also exacerbated by it. Another type of air pollution is then worsened by that increased heat: Smog forms when the weather is warmer and there’s more ultraviolet radiation. Climate change also increases the production of allergenic air pollutants including mold, due to to damp conditions caused by extreme weather and increased flooding, and pollen due to a longer pollen season and more pollen production. To stay hydrated, a human body needs about half gallon of fluid intake per day. The healthiest, go to choice is drinking water. Therefore, the bottled water industry has been constantly growing. On average, Americans drink 36.5 gallons per year, which contributes strongly to the 79 million single-use plastic bottles use daily. The problem is that after the plastic bottles are emptied, the U.S. only recycles 30% of plastic bottles. Increasing recycling rate shouldn't be our main goal, because it doesn't solve the problem if plastic pollution. Only 25% of recycled plastic bottles are re-made into new water bottles. The rest are shredded and processed into plastic flakes used to make carpets, garden chairs, plastic bags and other plastic items. We should be trying to reduce our plastic waste. For example, one huge way to reduce plastic waste is to buy a refillable water bottle and start drinking tap water. Numerous colleges and universities have banned bottled water from their campuses and even the city of San Francisco made it illegal to sell plastic water bottles. Plastic is killing our environment. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2018
Categories |