Water Pollution.

I have learned that there are different types of water pollutions. These include: point-source pollution, when a single source such as an oil spill that is causing the pollution; non-point-source pollution, where multiple sources are contributing to the pollution; and last but not least, trans-boundary pollution, when the pollution will be affecting the environment hundreds of miles away from the source and a nuclear waste is an example.

Water Pollution Causes:

     -Sewage and waste-water

     -Marine dumping

     -Radioactive waste

     -Industrial waste

     -Oil pollution

     -Underground storage leakages

     -Atmospheric deposition (Atmospheric deposition is the pollution of water caused by air pollution.)

     -Global warming

     -Eutrophication (Eutrophication is when the environment becomes enriched with nutrients. This can be a problem in marine habitats such as lakes as it can cause algal blooms.)

I researched some of the popular topics listed above to see their facts and statistics. Global warming is a known fact to many and lots of people know exactly what is happening and why it is happening. I think global warming could be one of the topics that I can challenge people with to see if knowing the causes and effects of it will have an emotional impact in the decisions they make that correlate to the environment and health of this earth.  A reason why we are sure that global warming is occurring is because the temperature of the world has climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (.8 degrees Celsius) since 1880. This was confirmed by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. 1980 and 1990 were the hottest decades in 400 years and the past 11 years have been among the hottest years since 1850.  The temperatures in Alaska, western Canada and eastern Russia have escalated twice as much as the world average, which I previously mentioned. The Arctic is experiencing the effect of global warming the most. The Arctic ice is disappearing quickly and this is really bad because animals such as the polar bears will soon lose their home. There are many animals who are denizens of this place and it has been estimated that by the year 2040, or earlier, the ice might be completely gone so this animals might lose their native homes forever. 

My following post will continue the research of global warming among other topics and the expedition to uncover and learn what water pollution really is.  

 

Do We Have Enough Water To Waste?

 We all, from time to time, waste a little water. The people who do this most often are usually under the idea that we have more water in this world than we need. The idea is, well, earth is 71% water and look at those great oceans filled with water. What can three minutes of water running while I brush my teeth take away from how much is in the oceans? Wait, remember, it will rain again and there will be more water so no harm done. In such cases, we take a look again at the ignorance of people taking advantage of what we have been given to here on earth. However, as I was researching, it hit me that maybe we do have enough water. And this was an idea that came to me when I started researching so I didn’t know much about this. What if maybe we do have just enough water that we can waste some and still have enough to get us by? Again, I didn’t know much about this so I began researching. 

Are hand dryers better & safer than paper towels?

Check out this great MSN video - Are hand dryers more sanitary than paper towels?

The week was focused on learning more about the hand dryer. I learned that in 1948, George Clemens invented the hand dryer.  There are good things about hand dryers and there are some negative things.  In a match against paper towels to see which one is the best, I found some areas where paper towels were better and some other areas where hand dryers were the best.

Manufacturing.

Manufactures say that hand dryers are able to cut costs by as much as 99.5% when in comparison to paper towels.  Thus, for companies that might spend $2340 yearly on paper towels, they can spend $14 yearly with hand dryers. The difference between the two costs is due to the cost of paper towels and the cost of electricity.  Hand dryers require very little maintenance compared to how much we have to replace paper towels.

Environment.

Paper towels cannot be recycled. Hence, hand dyers are claimed to be better for the environment. Additionally, with hand dryers, there is a litter reduction and waste in comparison with paper towels.  102 hand dryers in the public schools of Topeka, Kansas and the study showed that hand dryers competing against paper towels showed an annual savings of 34.5 tons of solid waste, 690,000 gallons of water and 587 trees.  153 hand dryers were also studied in the Iowa state and their results showed an annual savings of 10.5 tons of solid waste and 176 trees.  These all goes to show that environmentally, hand dryers are better than paper towels. They save a lot of what we lose when manufacturing paper towels.

Sanitation.

Studies on hand dryers, cloth towels and paper towels have found how bacteria plays a role in each. Hand dryers were found to increase the bacterial count on the skin by 117%, cloth towels decreased the bacterial count by 4% and paper towels also decreased the bacterial count by 245. Many hand dryers do not filter the air they use when drying hands so the bacteria in the air ends up on our hands unsafe and unclean.  Also, jet-air hand dryers splash the bacteria on our hands at least two meters across the room when in the process of drying our hands.  In this case, paper towels would win the battle.

Drying Efficiency.

University of Westminster did a study on the drying efficiency of paper towels, hand dryers and cloth towels. Their results showed that it takes around 43 seconds to completely dry ours hands under a hand dryer while paper towels took 12 seconds.  Many people don’t have the patience to wait under a hand dryer for 43 seconds to get their hand dry so typically, we take paper towels as our best suggestion when we want to get our hands dry.  It’s faster and as suggested before, cleaner.  Additionally, from a personal experience, paper towels are less noisy. Hand dryers can be very loud and irritating.