Royalty Free image obtained from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/pollution-garbage-degradation-1603644/

Greetings, and congratulations to everyone selected as the 28th Eco-generation Regional Ambassadors! There would be some ambassadors already familiar with my name. This is Joon, and I will be your Mentor for next 6 months. The keyword for the first month, March, will be <Water Pollution>.

Water pollution is a problem which does not gain people’s interests compared to those happening on land. It might be because it is not clearly visible or there are urgent problems remaining to solve, but one thing we are certain with is that we should not let this problem not addressed. Even in this moment, water, both fresh and sea, is getting polluted by different sources: waste water, garbage, plastics, and so on.

Waste waters from industrial complexes and factories are flowing directly to stream without getting through purification processes. Such waters may contain bacteria, chemical water pollutants including phenol and benzene and numerous substances. If released to fresh water, which is a source of drinking water for most countries, it would cause serious damages. One of the notorious examples is Itai-Itai disease which literally means ‘it hurts-it hurts’ in Japanese language. Excess Cadmium was discharged from mine smelting process and gave severe pains to people on spine and joints.

Sea water, on the other end of fresh water, also faces problems and it could be well illustrated by the term coined as ‘Marine Pollution.’ Garbage thrown directly, from the ferries of countries which does not have adequate waste process system, or indirectly, by other means, flows into certain regions of the ocean due to currents. Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the most famous example which garbage is concentrated so much that it got the name ‘The Trash Isles’ which was accepted as a country in UN. It is mainly consisted of bunch of plastic trashes which is threatening the marine life. This becomes the problem when such lives consume microplastics disassembled from bigger pile of plastic. It goes up the hierarchy of the food pyramid and eventually reach the top, where humans are located.

Both examples tell us that such problems which humans have made without much conscience return to humans with bigger impacts. Realizing the situation, different organizations, entities, and countries are now working together collaboratively to come up with some solutions, but we still have much to go.

Ambassadors are asked to write a thematic article regarding the topic of the month. One may explore the cause, another may look for solutions and some might research the efforts people are making to solve the problems.

The recommended length of an article is more than 3 paragraphs. However, regarding the format and topic, no matter how irrelevant it seems at the first sight, it is perfectly fine as long as it can be connected to the topic. So always feel free to take a step forward.

Ambassadors may refer to following links for brief information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution

https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/teacher_resources/webfieldtrips/water_pollution/

https://www.unwater.org/water-pollution-increasing-global-concern/

But feel free to refer to other sources as above is just a suggestion of possible sources.

Let’s have some meaningful time for next 6 months.

Good Luck

Always feel free to contact me via: joon.mentor@gmail.com