By Christine Jalleh

When you look at countries surrounded by a sea of blue on a world map, it’s hard to believe that only 2.5 per cent of the Earth’s water is fresh water while 97.5 per cent is salt water. What’s more, 70 per cent of that fresh water is frozen in the polar caps while the remaining 30 per cent exists as soil moisture or lies in underground aquifers. With fresh water getting scarce yet with more people around, it’s frightening to think that up to 60 per cent of the human body is water.

The question: will there be enough water for everyone?

* Source: United Nations Environment Programme, GEO-Global Environment Outlook 3, Past, Present and Future Perspective

One Man’s Poison = Another Man’s Meat?

While farmers in the developed world leak nutrients into their waters, opportunistic farmers see the developing world’s limited sewage treatment facilities i.e. “domestic and industrial waste” in rivers and oceans as “a resource rich in nutrients”. Referring to the report, Water for Food, Water for People (2007), Colin Chartres, Director-General of the International Water Management reveals that over 700 million people consume fruit and vegetables planted with wastewater. “Whilst the agricultural use of this water helps reutilize nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, there are still major risks to the farmers and consumers from faecal bacteria, viruses, helminths and…heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants,” he says. Doesn’t this really make you wonder where your fresh fruits and vegetables are coming from?

UV Water Treatment: A Green Solution?

Trojan Technologies developed the 2009 Stockholm Industry Water Award winning large-scale ultraviolet (UV) water disinfection systems which are currently used in more than 80 countries. This environmentally sound alternative to traditional chlorine-based water treatment projects intense UV light into the water, purifying it by neutralizing the organic contaminants and destroys the ability of microorganisms to function and reproduce.

Working more than 20 times faster than traditional chlorine based systems, UV technology has no environmental impacts from chemical leaks or any known disinfection by-products that could be harmful to health. UV treatment presents an especially effective solution to the interrelated challenges of water quality, particularly for the treatment and re-use of wastewater and sufficient supply in arid regions.

World Water Facts

On World Water Day (22 March), Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO shared this global concern: “The amount of water we have has remained constant for thousands of years while the number and types of users have increased massively. Population growth, urbanization, land use changes, and global warming are creating competing pressures on this finite resource. As a result, the amount of water available for each person is increasingly unequal and diminishing dramatically.”

Startling figures from the world’s watchdogs for nature and human well-being paint a muddy picture of the current situation:

• 1.1billion people live without clean drinking water while 2.6 billion people do not have proper toilet facilities;
• More than 125 million children under five years of age live in households without access to a safe drinking-water source;
• 2.5 billion people live without sanitation, which further threatens their health and jeopardizes the quality of water they rely on;
• Over 90 per cent of untreated waste water generated worldwide enters the environment through drains and gutters. In three out of four cities in the developing world, farmers are irrigating food crops with polluted water and
• 3.2 million people die each year from water-associated infection diseases due to microbial contamination in drinking water.

Water Report

KAZAKHSTAN The water supply in Almaty, Kazakhstan is good enough only for domestic cleaning. “I buy filtered water from drinking water suppliers,” says Gulnara Akhmetkaliyeva, 27, Community Liaison Officer for the British Embassy. “The situation is serious in Central Asia due to the drying out of the Aral Sea.” Nevertheless, Gulnara feels optimistic by efforts like the World Bank’s construction of a dike to trap water in attempts to restore what was once of the world’s fourth largest inland lakes – now a dry “ship graveyard” of sand.

CANADA While drinking water quality is not a concern in Montreal, Canada, the beautiful lakes around the city popular for recreational activities like swimming, boating or fishing are highly eutrophic. “High fertilizer usage in the farm lands and septic systems in homes surrounding the area leak nutrients into the lakes,” says Elena Bennett, 37, Associate Professor at McGill University. “But the government of Quebec is quite progressive with laws and actions to address the eutrophication. For instance, all farmers must work with a certified agriculture specialist to come up with a balanced nitrogen budget for their farm.”

CHINA In Xiamen, eastern China where lecturer, Shixiang Huang, 30, buys mineral water for drinking but uses tap water for cooking. “Many people in western China lack access to clean drinking water. In Xiamen, the water quality is generally fine but the lakes and sea are certainly polluted.”

MALAYSIA Drinking water is available in Penang, Malaysia but Ong Swee Sin, 31, R & Engineer uses a home water treatment system to remove the “weird taste and smells”. Ong says, “I decided to check out water treatment systems available in the market. I bought a water filter system, certified by NSF International.”

Types of Water Filters

The list below will you help you determine what type of filter will work best for you. Once you’ve got a general idea, visit NSF International’s drinking water treatment units online product database. (www.nrdc.org)

Activated Carbon Filter
How it works: Positively charged and highly absorbent carbon in the filter attracts and traps many impurities. Used in countertop, faucet filters and under-the-sink units.

Gets rid of: Bad tastes and odors, including chlorine. Standard 53-certifi ed fi lters also can substantially reduce many hazardous contaminants, including heavy metals such as copper, lead and mercury; disinfection byproducts; parasites such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium; pesticides; radon; and volatile organic chemicals such as methyltert-butyl ether (MTBE), dichlorobenzene and trichloroethylene (TCE).

Distiller
How it works: Boils water and recondenses the purified steam. Used in countertop or whole house point-of-entry units; can be combined with a carbon filter.

Gets rid of: Heavy metals such as cadmium, chromium, copper, lead and mercury, as well as arsenic, barium, fl uoride, selenium and sodium.

Reverse Osmosis
How it works: A semipermeable membrane separates impurities from water. (Note: This filtration technique wastes a substantial amount of water during the treatment process.) Used in under-the-sink units; often in combination with a carbon filter or UV disinfection unit.

Gets rid of: contaminants, including certain parasites such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia; heavy metals such as cadmium, copper, lead and mercury; and other pollutants, including arsenic, barium, nitrate/nitrite, perchlorate and selenium.

Ultraviolet Disinfection
How it works: Ultraviolet light kills bacteria and other microorganisms. Used in under-the-sink units, often in combination with a carbon filter and sediment screen.

Gets rid of: Bacteria and parasites; class A systems protect against harmful bacteria and viruses, including Cryptosporidium and Giardia, while class B systems are designed to make non-disease-causing bacteria inactive.

(Info adapted from Source: www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/gfilters.asp)

What Can You Do?

Solution: Make smart choices with food
Reduce your consumption of meat and dairy foods. Red meat is particularly intensive to produce. If you purchase meat, buy free-range organic. Buy certifi ed organic food wherever possible. It will not only be less energy-intensive, but also healthier! Support local farmers by shopping at farmers’ markets. Purchase as much produce when it is in season in your area, so that it doesn’t have to be shipped from around the world. You will not only be reducing your “food miles”, but will be helping the local economy and getting the freshest food possible. If you can, start a pesticide-free garden in your backyard, and grow some of your own food. Most importantly, eat no more than you need to keep yourself healthy, and limit consumption of food that is of little nutritional value, such as overly processed food.

Solution: Choose the correct water filter for your home
Household water filters generally fall into one of two categories: point-of-entry units, which treat water before it gets distributed throughout the house; and point-of-use units, which include countertop fi lters (e.g. fi lter pitchers), faucet filters, and under-the-sink units. Some filters use more than one kind of fi ltration technology. As a general rule, look for fi lters labeled as meeting NSF/ANSI standard 53 and that are certified to remove the contaminant(s) of concern in your water. While the NSF certification program is not flawless, it does provide some assurance that at least some claims made by the manufacturer have been verified.

(Source: www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/gfilters.asp)

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