Water pollution prevention is a very large but necessary job that is going to take governmental and citizen cooperation.

Since water contamination comes from many different sources and has numerous effects, every aspect of water pollution needs to be addressed.

One of the main reasons why water pollution is still such a threat to our planet’s health is because the governments of the world either choose to ignore the pollution that business is responsible for or because they want to give businesses ten years to change their industry.

By allowing for slow industry changes, water pollution continues to be a growing problem. Water pollution prevention requires drastic and swift action rather than a slow and progressive change.

Many businesses find the much needed changes to be cost prohibitive and thus are given many years to become in compliance with new water pollution prevention regulations.

Some countries have refused to implement any regulations as poverty and joblessness seems to be a bigger problem that the extreme pollutants that are reaching the waters of the world.

These politics are only opening up more avenues for more pollution and will create a much more dire situation over the next ten years. While maintaining jobs and preventing job loss is important as well, jobs can be created through the clean up, education, and managing regulations side of the problem.

While individual citizens need to become aware and involved in the prevention of water pollution, the majority of the issue rests on large businesses. This is especially true of manufacturing businesses.

Industrial Waste Water

Dumping has been a very large pollution problem since the early stages of production factories. Dumping waste in the oceans is not a reasonable or effective method of getting rid of manufacturing waste. While national and international dumping regulations have required that dumping be carried off further offshore, the act alone is enough to contaminate out oceans.

It doesn’t matter whether these companies dump their waste (which is often hazardous waste) five miles offshore or fifty miles offshore, dumping waste into the water is a clear problem. All countries need to disallow the dumping of wastes in the oceans, enforce these new regulations, and impose stiff and harsh penalties for ignoring the new and existing regulations.

Public education is also necessary to find an everlasting solution to water pollution. The use of pesticides and chemicals around or near streams, rivers, lakes, and even small springs can have an effect on the ecology of the waterways. Whether these chemicals enter the groundwater or they are carried off to larger bodies of water, chemical contamination through the use of pollutants is destroying the water of the planet.

The emissions from cars have a profound impact of the waterways. A vehicle’s emissions are not just determined by the amount of driving one does. Large vehicles with gas guzzling mileage issues emit more hazardous and toxic pollutants into the air where they then filter down to the ground, and our waterways.

Water pollution prevention requires a heightened level of consciousness, including what type of vehicle and how far or often the vehicle is driven. Driving less is part of a quality water pollution prevention program as the vehicles on the road are responsible for at least 1/3 of the nitrogen pollution in the Earth’s water.

The Chesapeake Bay, which is directly connected to the Atlantic Ocean, has been hit especially hard by car induced nitrogen pollution. Choosing the type of car we drive with care, driving less, and implementing stricter emission regulations for cars on the road can help make water pollution prevention a viable and likely goal.