Water Pollution
Causes of Water Pollution
Anthropogenic sources include:
- discharge of poorly-treated or untreated sewage;
- runoff from construction sites, farms, or paved and other impervious surfaces;
- discharge of contaminated and/or heated water used on industrial processes
- acid rain caused by industrial discharge of sulfur dioxide (by burning high-sulfur fossil fuels)
Natural sources include:
- seasonal turnover of lakes and embayments;
- siltation due to floods;
- eutrophication of lakes due to seasonal changes
- acid rain caused by natural volcanic discharges
- acid pollution of rivers and lakes by runoff from naturally acid soils
- carbon dioxide discharges and runoff, volcanic or mineral
Examples of Water Pollution
About the project
19-year-old Boyan Slat has unveiled plans to create an Ocean Cleanup Array that could remove 7,250,000 tons of plastic waste from the world’s oceans. The device consists of an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms that could be dispatched to garbage patches around the world. Instead of moving through the ocean, the array would span the radius of a garbage patch, acting as a giant funnel. The angle of the booms would force plastic in the direction of the platforms, where it would be separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling