What happens to our wastewater? How do we take polluted or dirty water and turn it into clean water? What wastewater remediation plans are the most effective?
- Understanding the Situation: Our Earth is covered in water. We all know this from science class and the pictures we?ve seen from space. What most people don?t know is that only 3% of that water is actually fresh, and, of that, only 1% is fit for drinking. Nearly all of that is drinkable, fresh water is groundwater, which is water that sits underground rather than above like a river or lake. In the United States, 95% of our available fresh water is groundwater.
One reason so little of the world?s fresh water is fit to drink is because 70% of the world?s industrial waste ends up polluting our fresh water. It gets dumped there, usually illegally, and though the situation is better in the United States than in many countries, the problem ends up affecting us all. - Dealing With the Situation: We use different kinds of waste treatment to deal with groundwater contamination and polluted water. There are both primary and secondary waste treatments, and they are part of the remediation plan to get rid of about 85-95% of wastewater pollutants.
Our wastewater contains all kinds of things that we don?t want going back into the environment. There?s residential wastewater, which can include things like human waste, scraps of food, and the oils, soaps, and chemicals we use around the house. Then there?s industrial wastewater, which can contain serious chemical pollutants. This kind of dirty water requires special treatment. - What Still Needs to Be Done? Our current wastewater treatments are fairly effective, so sometimes the most important remediation plan is simply to make sure we’re willing to invest in what we already know we need to do, and have the mechanisms and checks in place to ensure we?re doing it diligently.
It?s also important for contractors and industries to hire the right remediation services and environmental contracting services to deal with the kind of waste they are generating. It?s also crucial that governments oversee industries and construction projects, and their waste, and hold them to an environmental remediation plan that is effective.
Another area where we need to be more diligent is in watching for spills. Every year, the world sees about 16,000 chemical spills, usually during the transport of materials by truck, train, or ship. Preventing these spills would mean avoiding a lot of contaminated water in the first place.
Finally, we need to be continuously using our technological advances to develop faster and more cost-effective ways to deal with groundwater contamination and waste water treatment. The faster the treatment, the more effectively we clean our water. The more cost-effective a new system is, the more incentive there will be for businesses and industries to invest in it.
Water treatment is an issue that affects us all, and finding a water solution is in our, and the whole Earth?s, best interests.