Again, think of the rubbish we all make each day. Paper waste, food waste, plastic, rubber, metallic and aluminum waste. In some countries, there are deposited into the sea. All these waste types take time to decompose. Example, it is know that paper takes about 6 weeks, aluminum takes about 200 years and glass takes even more. When these end up in the sea, they harm sea animals and cause a lot of deaths
Oil Pollution
Routine shipping, run-offs and dumping of oils on the ocean surfaces happen everyday. Oil spills make up about 12% of the oil that enters the ocean. Oil spills cause major problems, and can be extremely harmful to local marine wildlife such as fish, birds and sea otters and other aquatic life. Because oil does not dissolve, it stays on the water surface and suffocates fish. Oil also gets caught in the feathers of sea birds stopping them from flying. Some animals die as a result.
Underground storage and tube leakages.
Many liquid products (petroleum products) are stored in metal and steel tubes underground. Other sewage systems run in underground tubes. Overtime, they rust and begin to leak. If that happens, they contaminate the soils and the liquids in them end up in many nearby water bodies.
Atmospheric
Atmospheric deposition is the pollution of water bodies caused by air pollution. Each time the air is polluted with sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, they mix with water particles in the air and form a toxic substance. This falls as acid rain to the ground, and gets washed into water bodies. The result is that, water bodies also get contaminated and this affects animals and water organisms
Effects of water pollution.
You will notice in the previous pages that water pollution is very harmful to humans, animals and water life. The effects can be catastrophic, depending on the kind of chemicals, concentrations of the pollutants and where there are polluted. Below, we shall see a summary of the effects of water