Solutions To Ocean Pollution

Sharmin, Sana, Kamila, Jeremy

City College 

December 09, 2019

Abstract:

To understand the factors which lead to water pollution research was done on studies that show the detrimental effects of each factor. The factors which are focused on in this essay are industrial, plastic and agricultural waste. For agricultural waste, a study was done to show the effects of pesticide-contaminated water and its effect on human health. The study displayed that, water polluted by pesticides leads to AMD disease in humans who utilize this water. Moreover, for Industrial waste, a study was done to show the concentration of chemicals in the Ganges river from Industrial waste. This water is being utilized by the environment which also produces the crops that humans are consuming and this can cause lethal health issues. Lastly, a study found new ways to quantify and predict how much plastic waste was entering the oceans and where it was coming from. For each, a corresponding solution was found by searching into peer-reviewed literature and also analyzed using the IMRAd method.  One study showed how natural pesticides are a better alternative to getting rid of pests to midgate the issues found. Furthermore, to tackle the issue in the Ganges a specialized water tax of the industry to reduce pollutants would be effective. Finally, implementing the research done on plastic decomposing wax worms could get rid of over 50% of plastic as a solution to this issue.

Keywords: Water Pollution, detrimental, Industrial waste, Agricultural waste, Plastic waste, pesticide, contaminated, AMD, disease, natural pesticides, concentration of chemicals, lethal health issues, water taxes, and wax worms

Introduction

In this section, there will be an analysis of each source utilized for both the problems and solutions. First, the growing population causes a need for more food, and when pest interferes with the crops being produced, it causes a reduction in crop yield. This leads to less food for people and causes starvation and malnutrition which eventually leads to death. Therefore, pesticides were established to deter pests from food thus there would be a greater yield in food production. However, many commercial pesticides that are being used are extremely toxic and cause water pollution (Cooper et al., 2007). Pesticide polluted water causes many detrimental processes in the environment such as getting organisms sick with Age-related degeneration (AMD). AMD is the main cause of blindness in developed countries (Montgomery, 2017). The early stages of the disease are often asymptomatic, but late AMD, either neovascular form or geographic atrophy, results in the loss of central, high-acuity vision. Factors that affect the risk of early AMD may differ from those that affect progression to late-stage disease. Both environmental and genetic factors affect the etiology of AMD. Limited research evidence indicates an association of pesticide with retinal dysfunction. The article reports on several cases that show signs of macular degeneration in pesticide after systemic or intraocular treatment with pesticides. Yet, few studies have addressed this issue. This study evaluated the association of pesticide use with physician-confirmed incident AMD.

Industrial production is our main source of mass production. With industrial production, comes industrial wastewater. Many essential products have waste that needs to be disposed of, such as antibiotic medicines. When producing them, the wastewater ends up in the water. Being a developing country, it is quite difficult not to have any problems and India is facing water issues that include not able to provide clean water which contributes to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene issues which are leading diseases.  Contaminated wastewater containing deleterious heavy metals and microbes may pose a serious threat to human health. Vegetables are an essential part of life as they provide extremely important components of our diet, however, the vegetables grown from contaminated water can cause adverse effects. This paper is rare in its own kind as it was conducted to quantify the effects of sewage water on crops. This study was conducted to investigate the water quality of sewage effluent into the Ganga River in India to find out the metal concentration, microbial contamination and its effect on crops to analyze the severe the problem of water pollution is.

Plastic remains one of the largest contributions to the amount of ocean pollution. The motivation behind the study chosen was to get an accurate estimate to magnify the issue of how much plastic is entering the ocean and where specifically plastic was coming from. The study was worth being conducted because it would allow global agencies to focus on the largest contributors to have a great effect to reduce the issue. The hypothesis guiding the study was that there was more plastic entering the ocean than was being accounted for currently. The specific purpose of the study was to create a model to estimate the amount of plastic that was to enter the ocean as the population increases at current rates. (Jamback, 2015). The motivation of the research on wax worms was to find a solution to the growing amount of plastic present in the environment. The study was worth conducting because there is currently very little done to degrade plastic The hypothesis governing the study was if Wax Worm homogenate can degrade Polyethylene. The specific purpose of the study was to see if Wax Worms were able to degrade Polyethylene faster than control, if their chewing was the primary cause or if it was their homogenate.  (Bombeli, 2017)

Methods

In this section, there will be a deconstruction of each study and the methods used by each. In reference to the agriculture waste, an Agricultural Health Study (AHS) cohort design included 52, 394 private pesticide applicators and 32, 345 of their spouses enrolled between 1993 and 1997 in Iowa and North Carolina. Once enrolled, participants completed self-administered questionnaires that collected information on lifestyle characteristics, demographics, lifetime pesticide use, medical history, and other farming practices. Researchers also conducted follow-up interviews in 1999-2003 and 2005 to 2010. To investigate the relationship of pesticide use and it’s washed up to local water which people were drinking and AMD incidences. They conducted a case-control study nested within the AHD study. Medical history collected in the follow-up interview included self-report of physician-diagnosed retinal or macular degeneration. We verified self-reports using information from participants’ eye-care physicians. Physicians either completed a short questionnaire on AMD diagnosis, retinal pathology, and treatment or provided relevant medical records.

In regards to industrial waste, wastewater samples were taken of water from sewage plants and farms. Moreover, vegetables were collected from the local market. In total 154 samples of the wastewater and 268 samples of different vegetables obtained for examination. Furthermore, on-site tests were also done like temperature and PH. Other variables were calculated through the experiment which includes acidity, alkalinity, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand et.al. For the sewage water, Physico-chemical characteristics test was done on the sample. In the first week of every month, samples of filtered water from the three sewage treatment plants were collected from March 2005 to February 2006. In every session, five samples from each plant, each containing two liters of water, were sent to the laboratory for testing. For the examinations of heavy metals in water, three samples of 100ml were taken from closed to irrigation pumps during April, September and December 2005. The samples were sent to the lab for testing which was conducted using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. For vegetables, they were collected from the nearby villages and examined for the coliform count. The presence of Salmonella, Vibrio, E. coli, and Clostridium were examined for January to March 2005 and August to October 2005. The method of Islam et al. (1992) was used in the isolation of vibrio from both irrigation water and vegetables (Rai et.al, 2010)

In reference to plastic, research created a new framework in order to magnify the scope of the plastic being taken to the ocean. Once collecting all available data on all solid waste produced available protocols were added in order to realistically continues the scope of other ways plastic enters the oceans, primarily from interactions of the number of individuals and their proximity to the sea as well as measuring from developing nations where records are not kept on waste and illegal dumping. In addition,  the authors were able to magnify the scope of the current problems with the projected growth of the population and trends of the economic consumption of plastics in developed and developing nations. (Jamback, 2015). The study pertaining to wax worms was split in order to pinpoint the source of what caused the degradation of the bonds of plastic. The control contained a regular Polyethylene bag and the test was one where there was a group of worms present. Furthermore, to isolate the effects of the worms mastication (chewing) the researchers washed both bags with a pure water solution to remove any possible contaminants that could alter the breakdown of the plastic. In the experimental treatment, a further step added a spray of worm homogenate, a mixture of the chemicals created by the presence of the worms to the polyethylene bag. No worms present in order to indicate if the worms or their chemical signature was enough to degrade the bag. In each treatment  the researchers used different forms of analysis to check if there were chemical signs of degradation such as shooting rays of light as well as the overall mass of the bag over time. The independent variables were the presence of wax worms and worm homogenate and the degradation of plastic over time. (Bombeli, 2017)

Results

This section will be an interpretation of the results of the data. In regards to agriculture, AMD risk was positively associated with age and smoking and was slightly elevated among women, those with more than high school education, and those who consumed alcohol more frequently; AMD was not related to race/ethnicity, state, or body mass index. Both early AMD (57 cases) and late AMD (72 cases) were associated with age and smoking; late AMD was also associated with residence in North Carolina and has more than high school education. AMD risk was elevated among people who used the water in their residence which were in close proximity to agricultural land that used insecticides and fungicides. The pesticides ended up polluting the surrounding bodies of water and making people sick. The results suggested that some pesticides had strong independent effects: their associations with AMD persisted in models including other pesticides. Others did not have independent effects: when modeled with other pesticides, their associations with AMD became weaker and nonsignificant. Some were intermediate, affected by modeling with some pesticides but not with others. The remainder were not correlated with other pesticides; therefore, their effects were presumed to be independent.

In regards to industrial waste, the pH of water revolves between 7 to 8, also the data suggests that pollutant from Dinapur is way compared to DLW and Bhagwanpur combined. Moreover, zinc metal was prominent in heavy metal pollutants as it was between 1 to 3 while other metals like Cu, Cd, Pb, and Cr were all less than 1. The mean coliform was greater in Spinach compare to other vegetables. The water samples were well above the limit at all sites and were recorded as being at the maximum at Dinapur sewage treatment said which was also reflected in microbial contamination of vegetables, (P.K Rai et al.) said “As far as microbial contamination in vegetables is concerned, the maximum was recorded at Dinapur site was particularly during the rainy season.” and “The fecal coliform count per 100 ml was 4 × 10^5 at Bhagwanpur, 3.2 × 10^3 at DLW and 4.2 × 10^7 at Dinapur.” (p.359). 

In regards to plastics, the study found that of the 2.5 billion metric tons of solid waste generated by about 93% of the population of about 11% was plastic. Of the plastic entering the ocean, it was noted that 83% of the plastic could be linked back to only 20 nations, most of which were nations undergoing serious developmental change. (Jamback, 2015) Both Wax worms and wax worm homogenate when present significantly speeds up the rate of polyethylene decomposition. The worms were able to reduce the mass of a normal plastic bag by 92 grams and it was found that the homogenate significantly speeds up the presence of decomposition due to the presence of different chemicals only found when the bags degrade. (Bombeli, 2017)

Discussion

In this section, there will be a discussion on the issues presented and how the studies imply their solution. Beginning with agriculture, researchers found associations of AMD with the use of organochlorine and organophosphate insecticides and phenoxy acetate herbicides as classes as well as with individual pesticides. In particular, there were consistent associations with chlordane, DDT, malathion, and captan. Additional pesticides with slightly less consistent but nevertheless notable associations were heptachlor, diazinon, pho-rate, 2,4,5-T, and 2,4-D. Overall, these results are consistent with experimental studies of mechanisms underlying AMD, including oxidative stress, inflammation, and complement activation. There is a need for further research involving a wider number of cases since this study involved a relatively small number of cases, and its novel results require replication. Nonetheless, the study presents practical implications for farmers, physicians, and regulators since it suggests that the use of specific pesticides may be a modifiable risk factor for AMD.

It is necessary to yield more crops to feed the growing population, but the process of yielding more crops shouldn’t be with the use of toxic pesticides.  There are many safe and natural pesticides that work as well as toxic pesticides. A natural pesticide to deter pests away would be essential oils. According to researchers species of Cockroaches were exposed to multiple Essential Oils such as Lime Oil (Yoon, 2009). Lime Oil was really effective in acting as a pesticide to these roaches. Additionally, 10 uL of the lime oil was used to be exposed to the organisms and it made the roaches repel from about 85.7% and 83.3%. In that, this oil inhibits the ATPase enzyme in the organism and harms them. Additionally, it reduces growth in these organism’s offspring. The utilization of these essential oil pesticides can be a safe process if done the natural way allowing mass industrial solutions due to the quantities already produced. 

In regards to industrial waste, the study also concluded that pollutants in that sample were too greater than the limit that it has completely change physicochemical characteristics of water. The results of wastewater almost came as per expectations as (P.K Rai et al.) compared the study with other paper and said, “The metal concentrations in wastewater at different sites were almost in accordance with that of Sharma et al. (2007) except the concentration of Cr at DLW.” (p.359). Heavy metal concentration was found in water which was being used for irrigation, were above the permissible limit as per general water quality criteria used for irrigation (Pescod, 1992; Sharma et al, 2007; P.K Rai et al.). Similarly, coliform counts crossed the permissible limits in water samples and vegetables, which shows a greater risk of health diseases. From the study, it is clearly shown that medical researchers are needed for further study and to better give better projections of disease caused by Microbial as (P.K Rai et al.) said: “Further study in collaboration with medical researchers will be extremely fruitful” (p.359). A solution is to implement water tax, whereby industries will be charged for purifying contaminated water (Del Rea, 2019). Industrial waste is all about money problems and many would prefer not to spend money on cleaning the mess if they are given the option to avoid it. A committee could be formed to identify the minimum cost to purify one gallon of contaminated water and should be charged on companies according to their usage which is using water for industrial use and possibly causing water pollution. The government could also just apply the taxes on all companies who are using water. It’s like allowing them to pollute water but taking all the responsibility of purifying water. 

In regards to plastic, the scientists stated that the best long term solution would require funding of better waste management in the nations that are developing due to it taking a lot of resources and time to generate. The authors claim that the projects disagree that there will be a peak amount of waste and can see that it will infect continue to grow to link this to the population and their increased economic consumption of products in urban areas and in developing nations. The authors described many flaws with the study. Due to the amount of uncertainty in “relatively few measurements of waste generation, characterization, collection, and disposal” as well as each study have different ways to generate the amount of waste generated. Even further there was actions like illegal waste and waste collection efforts as well as international waste exchanges across countries that were not able to be taken fully into account and estimated and not taken from any reference source. (Jamback, 2015). Luckily, the researcher’s main conclusions were that the compounds found in the worm could become an effective way to break down polyethylene and that the worms were likely able to do this because of the similar compounds present in honeycombs molecular structure. The author relates the study outcome to those of previous ones by noting the rate at which polyethylene was decomposed was faster than the bacterium that was used as well as it showed signs of chemical decomposition compared to the said bacterium. In the future tests were proposed to see if the worm homogenate worked on other related plastics. (Bombeli, 2017) Taking both into account since it was noted in the first study that over half of all plastic generated is polyethylene the worm homogenate could be synthesized in order to magnify the rate of decomposition. The main challenge then remains further removing the plastic from the ocean is vast enough quantities to remove significant ecological impact. It has been discovered that even though the vast majority of plastic can not be tracked to its end source there are optimal locations over the oceans to begin extraction (Sherman, 2016). Due to the main water currents, it has been found that about 45% of plastic, including the microplastics, pass through two locations off the coast of China and the Philippines as well as between California and Hawaii. With efforts to extract the plastic the extracts from all the species that have been discovered that increase the rate of decomposition can be used to safely remove the plastic from the ecosystem and the need to store it or heavily chemically treat it.  

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