We can live without love, not water

A famous quote states that "A drop of water is worthier than a sack of gold to a thirsty man." True, isn't it? Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies mainly due to the results of human activities, triggered in ways like dumping of untreated industrial and domestic waste and many more. We all do know that the 2/3rd of the Earth is covered with water but we should also realize that only 2.5 per cent of it is drinkable because an average human drinks five litres of water and uses up 100 to 170 gallons of water per day. There are seven billion people living on this planet which means, up to 1225 billion litres of water is being used up per day. That's a lot of water.

Have you ever heard of the name Musi? River Musi flows in the Deccan plateau through the Telangana state. It separates the old historic city and the new city. It was known by name Nerva during the Qutub Shahi period. Due to indiscriminate urbanisation and lack of planning, it has become a receptacle of untreated industrial and domestic waste dumping over 733 million litres of waste per day. It has earned the notoriety of being named one of the most polluted rivers of the country.

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board has set up 20 sewage treatment plants which treat over 750 million litres of waste per day, but Hyderabad produces 1483 million litres of waste per day. Data with the Pollution Control Board also shows that presence of E. coli and Coliform bacteria indicates high amount of faecal content in rivers which is a big disadvantage to farmers and other agricultural work. We can prevent water pollution by using few effective methods like: keeping out fats and oil from the sink, using safe disposal methods and not using toilets like dustbins.