Amanda Liao
09/05/13
Clean Water
In today’s world, one of the most basic problems facing our society is the absence of clean water that we use and drink in daily life. The importance of clean water is self-explanatory. In spite of the fact that 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water, there is only 2.53%of fresh water that we can actually use. For the only 2.53% of fresh water, some is not safe and clean to use and it is harmful to human body. Polluted water is a big risk to our health, which contains contaminants. The World Health Organization reports that 80% of all transmittable diseases are spread by contaminants in drinking water in some parts of the world. (Aqua-Sun international) One of the contaminants is Microbial Pathogens, diseases that are produced by microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria. This type of contaminant often comes from sewage and animal waste, which can cause direct health problems like salmonella infection, gastroenteritis, dysentery and hepatitis. Another type of contaminant is Inorganics, pollution by toxic metals like barium, lead, mercury and arsenic. Inorganic contaminants have a high possibility to cause chronic health effects rather than direct threats to our health. (North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.) After the small amounts of chemical in polluted water have accumulated in human body, it will cause liver, kidney and immune system damage, cancer, disorders of the nervous system and infertility of male and female, which can also cause birth defects directly. (North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.)
In order to drink healthy and clean water, many ways of purifying water have been invented. I am going to talk about two of the ways to cleanse water and the limitations of the methods in social and economic perspective.
Iodine treatment is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to purify water. Iodine solution has been shown to be effective on killing the microorganisms like Giardia cysts