Water and Waste Water is a seemingly abundant resource on the planet, but that p

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Water and Waste

Water is a seemingly abundant resource on the planet, but that perception would be incorrect. Although 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, less than 1% of that is potable — fresh water that people can drink and water crops with. The rest is unusable with about 97% of it in the oceans, which are too salty for these purposes.

The average American uses about 100 gallons of water per day, depending on how you calculate water usage. The majority of that water is used in the bathroom for bathing and flushing toilets. In the United States you can simply turn the faucet on when you need water, but others in many parts of the world are not so fortunate. Have you ever thought about where all of that water comes from or where it goes after it leaves your house? How do communities ensure that the water supply is safe? How do you ensure that the water you send down the drain does not harm the environment?

Review how wastewater is treated (the water that you send down the drain):

·                   Source: Retrieved from http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuww.html

Additionally, review some information on drinking water:

·                   Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Safe water. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/safewater/index.html

Recently, researchers have started to look at the impact that common pharmaceutical and personal care products have on the water supply. Read up on what this means to you and the environment:

·                   Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/ppcp/basic2.html

In your posts this unit answer the following questions:

1.          You have all heard that you should conserve water but this may seem odd depending on where you live. In an arid place like the southwestern United States it seems logical to conserve water, but in the Great Lakes region where water appears to be abundant, people are also encouraged to save water. Why are even those with an excess of annual rainfall being encouraged to conserve water?

2.          Currently drinking and wastewater treatment facilities do not treat for pharmaceutical or personal care product pollutants. Why?

3.          How should we, as a country, handle pharmaceutical or personal care product pollutants? Should they be handled through new treatments or through prevention? Explain your answer.

4.          Review your local community, town, city, or state government’s website for information and policies on water conservation and wastewater treatment. Post one interesting point that you learned in your research. Be sure to provide the resource for the information with your post.

5.          Later in the unit, compare your local government’s water policy information to one described by one of your classmates. Are there any similarities? Are there any differences?

Be sure to review the Discussion Board Grading Rubric provided in the Course Syllabus.

For help with citations, refer to the APA Quick Reference Guide.

Use this reference when referring to your text:

Trefil, J., & Hazen, R.M. (2013). The sciences: An integrated approach. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Write a 350 word summary on the above questions, I am needing help to start the summary some good pointers and possibly a good summary to get my brain going on how to approach these questions. Please ellaborate

Explanation / Answer

Because those with great lakes or excess of annual rainfall do not have potable water, it is just water that can’t be use without a proper treatment, people can swim on the great lakes but cannot consume that water to shower or to drink.

Same happens with rainfall, unless they have a system to purify the water it really doesn’t help much. There has to be a purification system so that type of water can be used in the bathroom at least

Because until recently they didn’t recognize them as a threat to the environment, after several studies it has concluded that some of the PCPP cause great harm

There are 2 possible ways, pharmaceutical companies should try to create products that are more friendly to the environment because it doesn’t only contaminate by dumping the product to the toilet, when the person consumes the products they contaminate the environment when they through excretion.

Another way is that the persons should dispose these products on locations where they can process them in the right way without harming the environment

In the city of Burbank Illinois, the government provides a website with helpful tips on how to save water at your house, it is divided on the back garden, laundry room, front garden, toilet, kitchen and bathroom.

For Example on the bathroom section: By keeping shows under 5 minutes a family of four can save 1,000 gallons of water monthly.

https://www.burbankwaterandpower.com/water-saving-tips

I don’t have access to compare it because I don’t have it a

vailable from your classmates.

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