Our Clean Future

TERM REPORT

Availability of Clean Drinking Water In Pakistan

Course: Business Communication – 402 I

Instructor: Mr. Asif Khan

Submitted by: Azam Altaf

Dated: 06th January 2008

Institute Of Business Management

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ACKNOWLEDMENTS

I am very much thankful acknowledge the gesture of the management and staff

of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources for their co-operation

extended to us in preparation of this report

I am also very grateful to our worthy and respected teacher Sir Asif Khan (our

Business Communication Teacher) for his guidance and support in

accomplishment this assignment.

We are very grateful to Administration, marketing and sales team for supporting

us and providing every possible assistance to us whenever we required. We

would also like to thank our friends in helping us in the preparation and

arrangement of this assignment.

Thanks,

Azam Altaf

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MBA - IM

Letter of Transmittal:

Dear Readers:

We submit this report on “Availability of Clean drinking water” that is assigned to us.

The information collected mainly of secondary sources. You will get brief idea about the
report in the beginning of the report. Relevant information has been provided to enhance
the effectiveness of the report.

If additional information regarding this report is requiring, we would be glad providing it.

Thank you
Yours truly,

Azam Altaf

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Table of Contents:

1. Introduction of the problem

2. Objective
3. Background
4. Disease Caused by Unhygienic Water
5. Causes of Water Pollution
6. Other Forms of Pollution
7. What can we do about it?
8. Types of Polluted water
9. How do we know when water is polluted?
10. Why does Pollution matter?
11. Classifying Polluted Water
12. Waste water Treatment
13. Global Water Pollution
14. Our clean future
15. Conclusion
16. Bibliography

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Executive Summary:

Little attention was paid to pollution and environmental issues in Pakistan until the early
1990s. Related concerns, such as sanitation and potable water, received earlier scrutiny.
In 1987 only about 6 percent of rural residents and 51 percent of urban residents had
access to sanitary facilities; in 1990 a total of 97.6 million Pakistanis, or approximately
80 percent of the population, had no access to flush toilets. Greater success has been
achieved in bringing potable water within reach of the people; nearly half the population
enjoyed such access by 1990. However, researchers at the Pakistan Medical Research
Council, recognizing that a large proportion of diseases in Pakistan are caused by the
consumption of polluted water, have been questioning the "safe" classification in use in
the 1990s. Even the 38 percent of the population that receives its water through pipelines
runs the risk of consuming seriously contaminated water, although the problem varies by
area. In Punjab, for example, as much as 90 percent of drinking water comes from
groundwater, as compared with only 9 percent in Sindh.

The central government's Perspective Plan (1988-2003) and previous five-year plans do
not mention sustainable development strategies Further, there have been no overarching
policies focused on sustainable development and conservation. The state has focused on
achieving self-sufficiency in food production, meeting energy demands, and containing
the high rate of population growth, not on curtailing pollution or other environmental
hazards.

The National Conservation Strategy Report has documented how solid and liquid excreta
are the major source of water pollution in the country and the cause of widespread
waterborne diseases. Because only just over half of urban residents have access to
sanitation, the remaining urban excreta are deposited on roadsides, into waterways, or
incorporated into solid waste. Additionally, only three major sewage treatment plants
exist in the country; two of them operate intermittently. Much of the untreated sewage
goes into irrigation systems, where the wastewater is reused, and into streams and rivers,

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which become sewage carriers at low-flow periods. Consequently, the vegetables grown
from such wastewater have serious bacteriological contamination. Gastroenteritis, widely
considered in medical circles to be the leading cause of death in Pakistan, is transmitted
through waterborne pollutants.

Low-lying land is generally used for solid waste disposal, without the benefit of sanitary
landfill methods. The National Conservation Strategy has raised concerns about industrial
toxic wastes also being dumped in municipal disposal areas without any record of their
location, quantity, or toxic composition. Another important issue is the contamination of
shallow groundwater near urban industries that discharge wastes directly into the ground.

Water in Karachi is so contaminated that almost all residents boil it before consuming it.
Because sewerage and water lines have been laid side by side in most parts of the city,
leakage is the main cause of contamination. High levels of lead also have been found in
water in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

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Introduction of the Problem:

Nature has blessed Pakistan with adequate surface and groundwater resources. However,
rapid population growth, urbanization and the continued industrial development have
placed immense stress on water resources of the country. The extended droughts and non-
development of additional water resources have further aggravated the water scarcity
situation. Consequently per capita water availability has decreased from 5600 m3 to 1000
m3/annum. The increasing gap between water supply and demand has led to severe water
shortage in almost all sectors. The water shortage and increasing competition for multiple
uses of water adversely affected the quality of water. In this regard, the results of various
investigations and surveys by several agencies had indicated that water pollution has
become a serious problem in Pakistan. Most of the reported health problems are directly
or indirectly related to water. The quantitative and qualitative concerns of water call for
an action plan for efficient development, utilization and monitoring of the water
resources of the country.

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Objective:

The general objective of water quality monitoring program is to provide the information
on the level of pollution in the water resources of the country. It is expected that this
information would help in identifying the problem areas for initiating appropriate
corrective solutions. The specific objectives of the water quality-monitoring program are:

To establish permanent national water quality-monitoring network to monitor changes in

surface and groundwater quality and groundwater levels;

To set up a national computer database on water quality for easy access by water users
through Internet;

To prepare national water quality map; and

To suggest remedial measures for improving the water quality.

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Background:

Pakistan’s current population of 141 million is expected to grow to about 221 million by
the year 2025. This increase in population will have direct impact on the water sector for
meeting the domestic, industrial and agricultural needs. Pakistan has now essentially
exhausted its available water resources and is on the verge of becoming a water deficit
country. The per capita water availability has dropped from 5,600 m3 to 1,000 m3. The
quality of groundwater and surface-water is low and is further deteriorating because of
unchecked disposal of untreated municipal and industrial wastewater and excessive use
of fertilizers and insecticides. Water quality monitoring and information management is
lacking, even though it’s crucial to any water quality improvement program.

The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) launched “National

Water Quality Monitoring Program” in the country on 17th March 2001. The program
aims at undertaking water quality monitoring in 21 major cities, six rivers and 10 storage
reservoirs and lakes. Previously no consolidated effort was made to monitor quality of
drinking water at the national level. As a consequence, no comprehensive data set is
available on quality of drinking water. Different organizations including Pakistan Council
of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Water and Power Development Authority
(WAPDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and some individual consultants
have conducted short-term studies on water quality assessment of a few cities.

Results from various investigations and surveys indicate that water pollution has
increased in Pakistan. The pollution levels are higher particularly in and around the big
cities of the country where cluster of industries have been established. The water quality
deterioration problems are caused by the discharge of hazardous industrial wastes
including persistent toxic synthetic organic chemicals, heavy

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Metals, pesticide products and municipal wastes, untreated sewage water to natural water
bodies. These substances mixed with water then cause widespread water-borne and
water-washed diseases.

Disease Caused by Unhygienic Water:

The World Health Organization (WHO, 1972-73) estimates that 500 million diarrhea
cases reportedly take place each year in children less than five years in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. The extent of enteric diseases in different areas depends upon the extent
to which water is exposed to contamination. The incidence of typhoid fever, bacillary
dysentery, infectious hepatitis and other enteric infections are common and are
transmitted through contaminated water. Cholera is still a wide spread water borne
disease in some developing countries. There are numerous other diseases that are
transmitted through polluted water. It has been shown that cancer may be caused by the
accumulation of certain materials carried out by water to human organs (DAWN, 1989).
The excess of cadmium accumulated in the kidney causes hypertension as is evident from
study conducted on animals. The deficiency of chromium in drinking water favour
atherosclerotic diseases in human. The compounds of chlorobenzenes and chlorophyll’s
may affect taste and odor of water.

The quality of water supplies in many cities of Pakistan is deteriorating fast. The primary
source of these supplies is groundwater. As a result, one hundred million cases of
diarrhea are being registered for treatment in hospitals of Pakistan each year (WHO,
1972-73). A survey conducted by PCRWR showed that 81,996 cases of water related
diseases were registered in Basic Health Units of Rawalpindi Division alone. According
to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 20 to 40% beds are occupied in the
hospitals of Pakistan by patients suffering from water related diseases.

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Causes of Polluted Water:

Most water pollution doesn't begin in the water itself. Take the oceans: around 80
percent of ocean pollution enters our seas from the land. Virtually any human
activity can have an effect on the quality of our water environment. When farmers
fertilize the fields, the chemicals they use are gradually washed by rain into the
groundwater or surface waters nearby. Sometimes the causes of water pollution are
quite surprising. Chemicals released by smokestacks (chimneys) can enter the
atmosphere and then fall back to earth as rain, entering seas, rivers, and lakes and
causing water pollution. Water pollution has many different causes and this is one
of the reasons why it is such a difficult problem to solve.

Sewage

With over 8 billion people on the planet, disposing of sewage waste is a major
problem. In developing countries, many people still lack clean water and basic
sanitation (hygienic toilet facilities). Sewage disposal affects people's immediate
environments and leads to water-related illnesses such as diarrhea that kills 3-4
million children each year. (According to the World Health Organization, water-
related diseases could kill 135 million people by 2020.) In developed countries,
most people have flush toilets that take sewage waste quickly and hygienically
away from their homes.

Yet the problem of sewage disposal does not end there. When you flush the toilet,
the waste has to go somewhere and, even after it leaves the sewage treatment

Works, there is still waste to dispose of. Sometimes sewage waste is pumped
untreated into the sea.

In theory, sewage is a completely natural substance that should be broken down

harmlessly in the environment: 90 percent of sewage is water. In practice, sewage

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contains all kinds of other chemicals, from the pharmaceutical drugs people take to
the paper, plastic, and other wastes they flush down their toilets. When people are
sick with viruses, the sewage they produce carries those viruses into the
environment. It is possible to catch illnesses such as hepatitis, typhoid, and cholera
from river and seawater.

Nutrients

Suitably treated and used in moderate quantities, sewage can be a fertilizer: it

returns important nutrients to the environment, such as nitrogen and phosphorus,
which plants and animals need for growth. The trouble is, sewage is often released
in much greater quantities than the natural environment can cope with. Chemical
fertilizers used by farmers also add nutrients to the soil, which drain into rivers and
seas and add to the fertilizing effect of the sewage. Together, sewage and fertilizers
can cause a massive increase in the growth of algae or plankton that overwhelms
huge areas of oceans, lakes, or rivers. This is known as a harmful algal bloom
(also known as an HAB or red tide, because it can turn the water red). It is harmful
because it removes oxygen from the water that kills other forms of life, leading to
what is known as a dead zone.

Waste Water

A few statistics illustrate the scale of the problem that waste water (chemicals
washed down drains and discharged from factories) can cause. Around half of all
ocean pollution is caused by sewage and wastewater. Each year, the world
generates 400 billion tons of industrial waste, much of which is pumped untreated
into rivers, oceans, and other waterways.

Factories are point sources of water pollution, but ordinary people from nonpoint
sources pollute quite a lot of water; this is how ordinary water becomes wastewater
in the first place. Virtually everyone pours chemicals of one sort or another down

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their drains or toilets. Even detergents used in washing machines and dishwashers
eventually end up in our rivers and oceans. So do the pesticides we use on our
gardens. A lot of toxic pollution also enters wastewater from highway runoff.
Highways are typically covered with a cocktail of toxic chemicals—everything
from spilled fuel and brake fluids to bits of worn tires (themselves made from
chemical additives) and exhaust emissions. When it rains, these chemicals wash
into drains and rivers. It is not unusual for heavy summer rainstorms to wash toxic
chemicals into rivers in such concentrations that they kill large numbers of fish
overnight. It has been estimated that, in one year, the highway runoff from a single
large city leaks as much oil into our water environment as a typical tanker spill.
Some highway runoff runs away into drains; others can pollute groundwater or
accumulate in the land next to a road, making it increasingly toxic as the years go
by.

Chemical waste

Detergents are relatively mild substances. At the opposite end of the spectrum are
highly toxic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). They were
once widely used to manufacture electronic circuit boards, but their harmful effects
have now been recognized and their use is highly restricted in many countries.
Nevertheless, an estimated half million tons of PCBs were discharged into the
environment during the 20th century. In a classic example of Tran boundary
pollution, traces of PCBs have even been found in birds and fish in the Arctic.
They were carried there through the oceans, thousands of miles from where they
originally entered the environment. Although PCBs are widely banned, their
effects will be felt for many decades because they last a long time in the
environment without breaking down.

Another kind of toxic pollution comes from heavy metals, such as lead, cadmium,
and mercury. Lead was once commonly used in gasoline (petrol), though its use is

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now restricted in some countries. Mercury and cadmium are still used in batteries
(though some brands now use other metals instead). Until recently, a highly toxic
chemical called tributyltin (TBT) was used in paints to protect boats from the
ravaging effects of the oceans. Ironically, however, TBT was gradually recognized
as a pollutant: boats painted with it were doing as much damage to the oceans as
the oceans were doing to the boats.

Radioactive waste

People view radioactive waste with great alarm—and for good reason. At high
enough concentrations it can kill; in lower concentrations it can cause cancers and
other illnesses.

Oil pollution

When we think of ocean pollution, huge black oil slicks often spring to mind, yet
these spectacular accidents represent only a tiny fraction of all the pollution
entering our oceans. Even considering oil by itself, tanker spills are not as
significant as they might seem: only 12% of the oil that enters the oceans comes
from tanker accidents; over 70% of oil pollution at sea comes from routine
shipping and from the oil people pour down drains on land. However, what makes
tanker spills so destructive is the sheer quantity of oil they release at once — in
other words, the concentration of oil they produce in one very localized part of the
marine environment.

Plastics

If you've ever taken part in a community beach clean, you'll know that plastic is far
and away the most common substance that washes up with the waves. There are
three reasons for this: plastic is one of the most common materials, used for

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making virtually every kind of manufactured object from clothing to automobile

parts; plastic is light and floats easily so it can travel enormous distances across the
oceans; most plastics are not biodegradable (they do not break down naturally in
the environment), which means that things like plastic bottle tops can survive in the
marine environment for a long time. (A plastic bottle can survive an estimated 450
years in the ocean and plastic fishing line can last up to 600 years.)

While plastics are not toxic in quite the same way as poisonous chemicals, they
nevertheless present a major hazard to seabirds, fish, and other marine creatures.
For example, plastic fishing lines and other debris can strangle or choke fish. (This
is sometimes called ghost fishing.)

Alien species

Most people's idea of water pollution involves things like sewage, toxic metals, or
oil slicks, but pollution can be biological as well as chemical. In some parts of the
world, alien species are a major problem. Alien species (sometimes known as
invasive species) are animals or plants from one region that have been introduced
into a different ecosystem where they do not belong. Outside their normal
environment, they have no natural predators, so they rapidly run wild, crowding
out the usual animals or plants that thrive there

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Other forms of pollution

These are the most common forms of pollution—but by no means the only ones.
Heat or thermal pollution from factories and power plants also causes problems in
rivers. By raising the temperature, it reduces the amount of oxygen dissolved in the
water, thus also reducing the level of aquatic life that the river can support.

Another type of pollution involves the disruption of sediments (fine-grained

powders) that flow from rivers into the sea. Dams built for hydroelectric power or
water reservoirs can reduce the sediment flow. This reduces the formation of
beaches, increases coastal erosion (the natural destruction of cliffs by the sea), and
reduces the flow of nutrients from rivers into seas (potentially reducing coastal fish
stocks). Increased sediments can also present a problem. During construction work,
soil, rock, and other fine powders sometimes enter nearby rivers in large quantities,
causing it to become turbid (muddy or silted). The extra sediment can block the
gills of fish, effectively suffocating them. Construction firms often now take
precautions to prevent this kind of pollution from happening.

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What can we do about it?

There is no easy way to solve water pollution; if there were, it wouldn't be so much
of a problem. Broadly speaking, there are three different things that can help to
tackle the problem—education, laws, and economics—and they work together as a
team.

Education

Making people aware of the problem is the first step to solving it. In the early
1990s, when surfers in Britain grew tired of catching illnesses from water polluted
with sewage, they formed a group called Surfers against Sewage to force
governments and water companies to clean up their act. People who've grown tired
of walking the world’s polluted beaches often band together to organize
community beach-cleaning sessions. Anglers who no longer catch so many fish
have campaigned for tougher penalties against factories that pour pollution into our
rivers. Greater public awareness can make a positive difference.

Laws

One of the biggest problems with water pollution is its Tran boundary nature.
Many rivers cross countries, while seas span whole continents. Pollution
discharged by factories in one country with poor environmental standards can
cause problems in neighboring nations, even when they have tougher laws and

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higher standards. Environmental laws can make it tougher for people to pollute, but
to be really effective they have to operate across national and international borders.
This is why we have international laws governing the oceans, such as the 1982 UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea (signed by over 120 nations), the 1972 London
Dumping Convention, the 1978 MARPOL International Convention for the
Prevention of Pollution from Ships, and the 1998 OSPAR Convention for the
Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic. The European
Union has water-protection laws (known as directives) that apply to all of its
member states. They include the 1976 Bathing Water Directive, which seeks to
ensure the quality of the waters that people use for recreation. Most countries also
have their own water pollution laws. In the United States, for example, there is the
1972 Water Pollution Control Act and the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act.

Economics

Most environmental experts agree that the best way to tackle pollution is through
something called the polluter pays principle. This means that whoever causes
pollution should have to pay to clean it up, one way or another. Polluter pays can
operate in all kinds of ways. It could mean that tanker owners should have to take
out insurance that covers the cost of oil spill cleanups, for example. It could also
mean that shoppers should have to pay for their plastic grocery bags, as is now
common in Ireland, to encourage recycling and minimize waste. Or it could mean

that factories that use rivers must have their water inlet pipes downstream of their
effluent outflow pipes, so if they cause pollution they themselves are the first
people to suffer. Ultimately, the polluter pays principle is designed to deter people
from polluting by making it less expensive for them to behave in an
environmentally responsible way.

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Types of Water Pollution

Surface Water:
When we think of Earth's water resources, we think of huge oceans, lakes, and rivers.
Water resources like these are called surface waters. The most obvious type of water
pollution affects surface waters. For example, a spill from an oil tanker creates an oil
slick that can affect a vast area of the ocean.

Ground Water:
A great deal of water is held in underground rock structures known as aquifers, which we
cannot see and seldom think about. Water stored underground in aquifers is known as
groundwater. Aquifers feed our rivers and supply much of our drinking water. They too
can become polluted, for example, when weed killers used in people's gardens drain into
the ground. Groundwater pollution is much less obvious than surface-water pollution, but
is no less of a problem. In 1996, a study in Iowa in the United States found that over half
the state's groundwater wells were contaminated with weed killers.

Point-Source Pollution:
Surface waters and groundwater are the two types of water resources that pollution
affects. There are also two different ways in which pollution can occur. If pollution
comes from a single location, such as a discharge pipe attached to a factory, it is known
as point-source pollution. Other examples of point source pollution include an oil spill

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from a tanker, a discharge from a smoke stack (factory chimney), or someone pouring oil
from their car down a drain.

Non Point Source Pollution:

A great deal of water pollution happens not from one single source but from many
different scattered sources. This is called non point-source pollution.
When point-source pollution enters the environment, the place most affected is usually
the area immediately around the source. For example, when a tanker accident occurs, the
oil slick is concentrated around the tanker itself and, in the right ocean conditions; the
pollution disperses the further away from the tanker you go. This is less likely to happen
with no point source pollution, which, by definition, enters the environment from many
different places at once

Tran Boundary Pollution:

Sometimes pollution that enters the environment in one place has an effect hundreds or
even thousands of miles away. This is known as Tran boundary pollution. One example
is the way radioactive waste travels through the oceans from nuclear reprocessing plants
in England and France to nearby countries such as Ireland and Norway.

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How do we know when water is polluted?

Some forms of water pollution are very obvious: everyone has seen TV news
footage of oil slicks filmed from helicopters flying overhead. Water pollution is
usually less obvious and much harder to detect than this. But how can we measure
water pollution when we cannot see it? How do we even know it's there?

There are two main ways of measuring the quality of water. One is to take samples
of the water and measure the concentrations of different chemicals that it contains.
If the chemicals are dangerous or the concentrations are too great, we can regard
the water as polluted. Measurements like this are known as chemical indicators of
water quality. Another way to measure water quality involves examining the fish,
insects, and other invertebrates that the water will support. If many different types

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of creatures can live in a river, the quality is likely to be very good; if the river
supports no fish life at all, the quality is obviously much poorer.

Why does pollution matter?

Some people believe pollution is an inescapable result of human activity: they

argue that if we want to have factories, cities, ships, cars, oil, and coastal resorts,
some degree of pollution is almost certain to result. In other words, pollution is a
necessary evil that people must put up with if they want to make progress.
Fortunately, not everyone agrees with this view. One reason people have woken up
to the problem of pollution is that it brings costs of its own that undermine any
economic benefits that come about by polluting.

Take oil spills, for example. They can happen if tankers are too poorly built to
survive accidents at sea. But the economic benefit of compromising on tanker
quality brings an economic cost when an oil spill occurs. The oil can wash up on
nearby beaches, devastate the ecosystem, and severely affect tourism. The main
problem is that the people who bear the cost of the spill (typically a small coastal
community) are not the people who caused the problem in the first place (the
people who operate the tanker). Yet, arguably, everyone who puts gasoline (petrol)
into his or her car—or uses almost any kind of petroleum-fueled transport—
contributes to the problem in some way. So oil spills are a problem for everyone,
not just people who live by the coast and tanker operates.

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Sewage is another good example of how pollution can affect us all. Sewage
discharged into coastal waters can wash up on beaches and cause a health hazard.
People who bathe or surf in the water can fall ill if they swallow polluted water—
yet sewage can have other harmful effects too: it can poison shellfish (such as
cockles and mussels) that grow near the shore. People who eat poisoned shellfish
risk suffering from an acute—and sometimes fatal—illness called paralytic
shellfish poisoning. Shellfish is no longer caught along many shores because it is
simply too polluted with sewage or toxic chemical wastes that have discharged
from the land nearby.

Pollution matters because it harms the environment on which people depend. The
environment is not something distant and separate from our lives. It's not a pretty
shoreline hundreds of miles from our homes or a wilderness landscape that we see
only on TV. The environment is everything that surrounds us that gives us life and
health. Destroying the environment ultimately reduces the quality of our own lives
—and that, most selfishly, is why pollution should matter to all of us.

Classifying Polluted Water:

The major sources of water pollution can be classified as municipal, industrial, and
agricultural. Municipal water pollution consists of wastewater from homes and
commercial establishments. For many years, the main goal of treating municipal
wastewater was simply to reduce its content of suspended solids, oxygen-
demanding materials, dissolved inorganic compounds, and harmful bacteria. In
recent years, however, more stress has been placed on improving means of disposal
of the solid residues from the municipal treatment processes. The basic methods of

treating municipal wastewater fall into three stages: primary treatment, including
grit removal, screening, grinding, and sedimentation; secondary treatment, which

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entails oxidation of dissolved organic matter by means of using biologically active

sludge, which is then filtered off; and tertiary treatment, in which advanced
biological methods of nitrogen removal and chemical and physical methods such
as granular filtration and activated carbon absorption are employed. The handling
and disposal of solid residues can
account for 25 to 50 percent of the capital and operational costs of a treatment
plant. The characteristics of industrial wastewaters can differ considerably both
within and among industries. The impact of industrial discharges depends not only
on their collective characteristics, such as biochemical oxygen demand and the
amount of suspended solids, but also on their content of specific inorganic and
organic substances. Three options are available in controlling industrial
wastewater. Control can take place at the point of generation in the plant;
wastewater can be pretreated for discharge to municipal treatment sources; or
wastewater can be treated completely at the plant and either reused or discharged
directly into receiving waters.

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Wastewater Treatment
Raw sewage includes waste from sinks, toilets, and industrial processes. Treatment of the
sewage is required before it can be safely buried, used, or released back into local water
systems. In a treatment plant, the waste is passed through a series of screens, chambers,
and chemical processes to reduce its bulk and toxicity. The three general phases of
treatment are primary, secondary, and tertiary. During primary treatment, a large
percentage of the suspended solids and inorganic material is removed from the sewage.
The focus of secondary treatment is reducing organic material by accelerating natural
biological processes. Tertiary treatment is necessary when the water will be reused; 99
percent of solids are removed and various chemical processes are used to ensure the
water is as free from impurity as possible.

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Agriculture, including commercial livestock and poultry farming, is the source of many
organic and inorganic pollutants in surface waters and groundwater. These contaminants
include both sediment from erosion cropland and compounds of
phosphorus and nitrogen that partly originate in animal wastes and commercial
fertilizers. Animal wastes are high in oxygen demanding material, nitrogen and
phosphorus, and they often harbor pathogenic organisms. Wastes from commercial
feeders are contained and disposed of on land; their main threat to natural waters,
therefore, is from runoff and leaching. Control may involve settling basins for liquids,
limited biological treatment in aerobic or anaerobic lagoons, and a variety of other
methods

Global Polluted Water:

Estimates suggest that nearly 1.5 billion people lack safe drinking water and that at least
5 million deaths per year can be attributed to waterborne diseases. With over 70 percent
of the planet covered by oceans, people have long acted as if these very bodies of water
could serve as a limitless dumping ground for wastes. Raw sewage, garbage, and oil
spills have begun to overwhelm the diluting capabilities of the oceans, and most coastal
waters are now polluted. Beaches around the world are closed regularly, often because of
high amounts of bacteria from sewage disposal, and marine wildlife is beginning to
suffer.

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Perhaps the biggest reason for developing a worldwide effort to monitor and restrict
global pollution is the fact that most forms of pollution do not respect national
boundaries. The first major international conference on environmental issues was held
in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations (UN). This
meeting, at which the United States took a leading role, was controversial because many
developing countries were fearful that a focus on environmental protection was a means
for the developed world to keep the undeveloped world in an economically subservient
position. The most important outcome of the conference was the creation of the United
NationsEnvironmentalProgram(UNEP)

UNEP was designed to be “the environmental conscience of the United Nations,” and, in
an attempt to allay fears of the developing world, it became the first UN agency to be
headquartered in a developing country, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to
attempting to achieve scientific consensus about major environmental issues, a major
focus for UNEP has been the study of ways to encourage sustainable development
increasing standards of living without destroying the environment. At the time of UNEP's

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creation in 1972, only 11 countries had environmental agencies. Ten years later that
number had grown to 106, of which 70 were in developing countries.

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Analysis of Primary Data:

The question we asked in our survey is carried out mostly by house wives and working
women, from upper to lower middle class.
The questions were as follows:
1. Do you prefer safe drinking in your daily life or not?
 Around 80% of women said that they do prefer safe drinking and try to
give their children clean and healthy water. And around 17 % said that
they do prefer safe drinking but can’t afford to give their children the most
safe and hygienic water. The rest 3% said that it doesn’t really matters if
we give our children safe or unsafe water, it just the weather that effects
the child’s health the most.

2. For your children to remain healthy do you prefer giving them mineral water, boil
drinking water or just tap water?
 Upper class working women said that they buy mineral water for their
children; on the other hand middle class women said that they just filter
and boil out the water for their children’s safe health because they can’t
afford to buy mineral water. But where as the lower middle class women
said they just prefer tap water for their whole family, because boiling the
water spoils it taste and loses all its nutrients.

3. Do you think that mineral water coming in different labels is safe and healthy to
drink or not?
 Around 76% of women said that it is absolutely safe and healthy to drink
mineral water. But rest of the 24% of women said that it is not 100% pure
so we can’t exactly say that if it’s healthy or not.

4. What cure do you think is there for your family, suffering from water related
disease?
 Women preferring safe and healthy drinking said that keeping their
surroundings and water supplies clean will keep them secure from diseases
caused by unhygienic water. While others don’t even bother to use safe
and hygienic water.

5. As an individual what step do you think you should take in order to keep your
country’s water clean?
 Majority of the women said as an individual if we stop littering on
beaches, sea sides and rivers, and stop pouring oil down drains us can
keep our country’s water clean.

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Our Clean Future

Life is ultimately about choices—and so is pollution. We can live with sewage-

strewn beaches, dead rivers, and fish that are too poisonous to eat. Or we can work
together to keep the environment clean so the plants, animals, and people who
depend on it remain healthy. We can take individual action to help reduce water
pollution, for example, by using environmentally friendly detergents, not pouring
oil down drains, reducing pesticides, and so on. We can take community action
too, by helping out on beach cleans or litter picks to keep our rivers and seas that
little bit cleaner. And we can take action as countries and continents to pass laws
that will make pollution harder and the world less polluted. Working together, we
can make pollution less of a problem—and the world a better place.

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 Our Clean Future

Conclusion

Clearly, the problems associated with water pollution have the capabilities to
disrupt life on our planet to a great extent. Congress has passed laws to try to
combat water pollution thus acknowledging the fact that water pollution is, indeed,
a serious issue. But the government alone cannot solve the entire problem. It is
ultimately up to us, to be informed, responsible and involved when it comes to the
problems we face with our water. We must become familiar with our local water
resources and learn about ways for disposing harmful household wastes so they
don’t end up in sewage treatment plants that can’t handle them or landfills not
designed to receive hazardous materials. In our yards, we must determine whether
additional nutrients are needed before fertilizers are applied, and look for
alternatives where fertilizers might run off into surface waters. We have to
preserve existing trees and plant new trees and shrubs to help prevent soil erosion
and promote infiltration of water into the soil. Around our houses, we must keep
litter, pet waste, leaves, and grass clippings out of gutters and storm drains. These
are just a few of the many ways in which we, as humans, have the ability to combat
water pollution. As we head into the 21st century, awareness and education will
most assuredly continue to be the two most important ways to prevent water
pollution. If these measures are not taken and water pollution continues, life on
earth will suffer severely.

Global environmental collapse is not inevitable. But the developed world must
work with the developing world to ensure that new industrialized economies do not
add to the world's environmental problems. Politicians must think of sustainable
development rather than economic expansion. Conservation strategies have to
become more widely accepted, and people must learn that energy use can be
dramatically diminished without sacrificing comfort.

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 Our Clean Future

Bibliography:

www.google.com
Sunday Magazines
Dawn newspaper
Help from different MBA students

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