2021 Essay Contest Finalist

Entry by Henry Nguyen

Harmful and Wasteful Ways of Water

People use water for sanitation, recreational, household, environmental, and agricultural purposes. All living things need water to survive. People use water in their daily lives, but most of the water used is not by the individuals themselves. Society’s use of water is too inefficient, and the way they treat the liquid byproducts of products made with water is wasteful, unclean, and harmful.

Only 2.5 percent of water on Earth is freshwater, but two thirds of it is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. Based on Science Daily, “It is estimated that 70% of world-wide water use is for irrigation in agriculture.”. Along with the use of water in agriculture, the demand for water is greater than there is supply in many parts of the world. It is expected that a lot more areas will experience this imbalance in the near future. Human competition for water is growing to the point where major world aquifers are becoming depleted due to the lack of water to meet demands.

Pollution is a threat to water supplies. Pollutants enter and contaminate the water, decreasing availability of usable water, the only way to make water usable is by processing the water. In countries with no regulations, pollution can happen through dumping trash, raw sewage discharge, and chemical pollution into natural waters, countries with regulations also pollute through loopholes, littering, plastics, runoffs, etc. Contaminated liquids can be harmful to animals and humans.

Let’s bring awareness to how inefficient and harmful our water usage could be. Ways to help is to increase education and awareness about water problems to everyone especially students and young people because they are the future and the ones who will innovate and solve problems like water, when the previous innovators grow old and die, they are the new generation.