Water Pollution and Drinking Water Scarcity

Because of increasing populations around the world, more and more of our clean drinking water is being contaminated. The world must take action immediately. Implementing one plan will not save our drinking water, but instead several different things need to come in to effect to preserve the world's clean drinking water.

One alternative we have is to make people implement a wastewater garden in their homes and businesses. A wastewater garden is a garden made up of specially chosen plants and soils that can dispose of our harmful wastes in a totally non-harmful way. The way it works is all of the greywater from washing machines, showers, tubs and sinks will drain into a holding tank, where the small amounts of oils are separated out. Blackwater from toilet waste can also go into the tank given proper treatment first. The wastewater is then pumped into the garden where the plants will essentially eat, drink and breathe away the contaminants found in the wastewater. Certain kinds of plants "purify" the contaminants into useful energy while clean water evaporates. All that is leftover from the wastewater is plant biomass, evaporated water, carbon dioxide and heat. When the plants are harvested they can be composted, used or even sold for profit. Plants such as bamboo and holly work very well in a wastewater garden. The evaporated water and heat can be recaptured to offer a clean source of pure distilled water and for heating air or water. One option for creating a wastewater garden is to use a greenhouse, which will cause higher temperatures and can help heat your house (Waste 1-3).

This alternative would probably be a pretty expensive and labor intensive project to set up, but once it is set up there is not much upkeep except to maintain the plants in the garden.

Another alternative to this would be to have local communities set up large wastewater gardens to treat the communities' wastewater as a whole. The Federal and State Government should give great benefits to cities who do accomplish this and perhaps help pay for the installation of a wastewater garden. Arcata's Marsh would be a good example of a wastewater garden that treats the communities' wastewater.

Another alternative to help prevent the wasting of clean water is to implement composting toilets that use virtually no water. One type of a composting toilet system is called the carousel.