Water is essential for life. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to clean drinking water. Drinking contaminated water can do more harm than not drinking any water at all.
Assuming your water is clean and safe can put you at risk. Even if you’re drinking water that tastes okay and seems healthy, you could be exposing yourself to toxins. Many people don’t realize just how polluted the water they drink every day is, and over time, this can affect their health.
To protect yourself, it helps to understand how pollution enters drinking water, what it does to your body, and what you can do about it.
What Counts as Pollution?
Polluted water is any water that contains harmful substances. Contamination can occur at the water source, such as a river or lake. It can also occur later in its journey to your drinking cup.
The key to keeping water clean is determining where the contamination occurs and what’s causing the contamination. Pollutants are most commonly introduced into the water supply from:
- Runoff from agriculture and urban areas
- Industrial discharge
- Aging infrastructure and pipe corrosion
- Landfill leakage and improper waste disposal
Some of the most common contaminants found in water include:
- Chemical pollutants (industrial waste, pesticides, fertilizers)
- Biological contaminants (bacteria, viruses, parasites)
- Heavy metals (lead, mercury, arsenic)
- Microplastics and emerging contaminants
How Does Pollution Change Your Water?
In some cases, you won’t know your water is polluted. However, pollution can sometimes alter the taste, odour, or clarity of water. Additionally, polluted water causes:
- An increased risk to your health
- Damage to your pipes
- Strain on water treatment facilities
- Higher cost for purification
- Harm to the aquatic ecosystem
- Contaminated groundwater reserves
Health Risks
In the best-case scenario, contaminated water will make your water taste less than pleasant. It’s one of the reasons water taste enhancers have become more popular. Adding flavour to water masks the unpleasant taste that’s often caused by contamination.
Unfortunately, poor taste isn’t the only concern related to polluted water.
Health risks associated with contaminated water can be short- and long-term. Some of the most common health issues associated with drinking polluted water include:
- Gastrointestinal distress
- Skin irritation
- Acute toxicity
- Neurological damage (especially lead exposure)
- Hormonal disruption
- Increased cancer risk
Everyone who drinks contaminated water faces risk, but vulnerable populations like children, people with compromised immunity, and older people face an especially high risk.
Where Does Pollution Come From?
One of the most important steps in cleaning up our drinking water supply is understanding where the pollution comes from. The most common culprits include:
- Fertilizers, manure, and pesticides from agricultural runoff
- Industrial waste
- Manufacturing byproducts
- Breakdown of plastic wastes
- Aging water systems
- Flooding that spreads contaminants
- Drought conditions that cause the concentration of pollutants
Does Water Treatment Help?
The simplest answer to this is “somewhat.”
Treating water does clean it up, but it can be expensive and time-consuming. The municipal water treatment processes include filtration, disinfection, and chemical treatment of water. These things can also negatively affect the taste of water.
Not to mention, they don’t always work. They don’t remove every contaminant, and sometimes they fail entirely, especially when the water between the treatment facility and your home picks up contaminants (like lead).
Add this to the fact that not all locations offer the same level of treatment. Furthermore, treatment centers might not be as efficient as they age, and changes in the environment, agriculture, and other factors put an increasing strain on these plants.
What Can You Do?
On a personal or household basis, there are several things you can do (and avoid doing) to reduce contamination of your water supply. For instance:
- Dispose of your medications and other chemicals properly (many communities have medication turn-in days)
- Reduce your use of fertilizers and pesticides
- Opt for environmentally friendly cleaning and other products
- Avoid buying single-use plastics, especially plastic water bottles
Are You Planning an Event?
For events attended by many people, it’s especially important to ensure that attendees have access to clean drinking water and that you do your part to prevent the event from further contaminating the water supply.
High demand for clean water can strain your local water system. As the event organizer, you need to be sure that attendees have access to clean drinking water.
Quench Buggy can help.
If your next event requires dependable, high-quality drinking water, consider working with Quench Buggy to provide clean, reliable hydration while reducing environmental impact.