We need to understand water quality to protect our health and the health of ecosystems. Those, of course, are the main reasons we are interested in water quality to make sure our drinking water is safe and we are not damaging the environment.
Water and wastewater treatment, particularly industrial water, is crucial and necessary for safeguarding environmental and human health, and it is a serious public health concern. Pesticides, textile dyes, plasticizers, and disinfection by-products such as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are some of the growing pollutants in wastewater discharge that have negative health impacts.
To increase water supply, more difficult water sources, such as saltwater or wastewater, will have to be used. Some technologies can turn these sources into usable streams, but they come at great energy and economic cost. As a result, new ways to enhance energy efficiency or boost low-cost, renewable energy sources for water treatment are urgently needed.
The field of WFA (Water Footprint Assessment) is built on four fundamental ideas- freshwater is a global resource, freshwater renewal rates are limited, think in terms of supply chains and product life cycles, take a holistic approach to freshwater usage and shortage.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California, is the world's largest accumulation of ocean plastic. It is a massive accumulation of garbage in the North Pacific Ocean caused primarily by nations near the Pacific Rim. It is divided into two patches: the Western Garbage Patch, which is near Japan and runs to Hawaii, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California.
With everything showing their two completely different sides, Chemicals are a boon and a bane to the environment. Undoubtedly, innovations and new techniques are making things easier and life more luxurious, but the price we pay for the same matters a lot. It might not be in terms of money or present-day destruction or disappointments. Still, some of the innovations like introducing detergents containing more phosphates, such that cleaning becomes easier, etc., will ask us for rebates in the coming future by destroying the living habitat, extinction of various species, etc.