“Environmental bankruptcy” is a truly horrible concept. I loathe buzz phrases, let alone coining them, but it says what it needs to say.
The trouble is it’s looking all too possible. Recent research into global impacts of wastewater has come up with some very grim-looking data. Researchers at the University of California and Columbia University produced a nasty-looking yellow-stained map of the world. The research delivers a lot of very sobering information about the state of the waters.
The biggest problem is nitrogen, a serious contaminant in ecosystems affecting the entire food chain. Vast amounts of nitrogen are being released, and the effects on 135,000 watersheds worldwide look like what they are, a train wreck. It’s as bad as atmospheric emissions are in global warming, and as much of a problem in terms of global pollution.
Treated and untreated sewage play a major role in this truly hideous environmental toxic cocktail. Untreated effluent is bad enough, and stupid enough.
The basics:
- China, India and the US are the biggest contributors.
- Europe, China, India and North America are literally wading in wastewater contaminants.
- 25 of the watersheds produce about half of the nitrogen. This is mainly due to the configuration of the feeds into the watersheds For example – The Yangtze is the largest producer, delivering about 11% of the nitrogen. (No great surprise there; the Yangtze is fed from a vast array of tributaries. The notorious Louisiana “offshore badlands” are similarly fed by the Mississippi.)
- Additional nitrogen comes from agricultural fertilizers as well as sewage. (This is a longstanding problem. Everyone has known about the agricultural inputs, and nothing much has been done about it.
- Nitrogen is a critical part of most fertilizers, (the N in the NPK mix) and the volumes of nitrogen entering the watersheds are inevitably very high. The trouble with so much added nitrogen in watersheds and the oceans is that it has fundamental environmental impacts.
Nitrogen is a driving factor in many types of algal blooms, which can completely wipe out local ecosystems, destroy fisheries, poison the waters, etc. all by themselves. Red tides are classic examples, and are super-toxic. It’s not quite an overstatement to say that swimming in cyanide might actually be a better option.
Additional physical waste like sewage, plastics, and materials deposited by runoff don’t help, either. The sheer volumes of materials are causing havoc in rivers and oceans.
Add to this another gruesome little problem – Anoxic coastal waters. These are oxygen-poor areas, and if you look at a map of anoxic zones, they look very like the findings from the new research on wastewater contamination.
It’s no coincidence. Humanity, as usual, has been dumping its waste problems in the environment for centuries. Now, the problems are coming back to say hello.
Doomsday is unaffordable – “Environmental bankruptcy”
The absolute rock bottom line is way too close in wastewater and ocean management. The core marine and riverine environments are in very serious trouble. Water is critical to life. Unusable water = no life. There’s no way around that equation.
As it is, the world’s freshwater resources are under ridiculous levels of overstrain, due entirely to bad management. The oceans are horrendously contaminated, as this research proves, yet again. This is irresponsibility cubed, and the payoff is an extremely large, past-due, bill.
What’s different this time is that nearly 8 billion people can’t live in an environment where the food chain and water supply are being totally destroyed in so many ways. It’s another environmental gravestone from the last mindless 50 years dropping in to say “Hi! How you going?” “Going” is exactly what a lot of people will be doing, and they won’t be coming back.
The whole world could be like Yemen, at this rate. The big unavoidable crunch time is here, right on time to go with all the other disasters. This is true environmental bankruptcy. It’s not a price anyone can afford to pay.
The fix is simple but not fixing it is not an option
To bang away on the bankruptcy metaphor a bit longer – The administrators MUST be called in. In this case, “ liquidation” is a very apt analogy, not just a disgusting pun.
Water treatment is complex. It has to manage any range of contaminants and needs to deliver very high volumes of treated water in the global context. Water treatment capability needs to be agile and adaptable. Who knows what wonderful new contaminants are in store? Nano crap? Not at all impossible, in fact, it’s been predicted some years ago.
Options:
- Multi-stage water treatment – This is standard practice, but it can be upgraded to manage very high volumes of water, extracting the garbage.
- Molecular filters – This is 1970s technology, refined since, but able to produce drinking water out of sewage.
- Microbial and mycological extraction of contaminants is also possible, but that’d require an actual encyclopedia to discuss in depth. Let’s just say it’s been tried and it works.
- Waste recovery can also be commercially viable. Nitrogen is a very saleable commodity for example. Recycling it would pay for itself. In theory, you could recycle the entire Table of Elements using the right filters and efficient extraction.
- You’ll notice I haven’t even mentioned groundwater. That in itself is the equivalent of an extra ocean or so. The same problems apply, just with somewhat different environmental dynamics. Treatment needs to be in accordance with local conditions, which could be anything, however horrifying.
Huge capital outlay vs certain death
The range of solutions equates to a single possibility – Pay to fix the problem or wonder where your water comes from in about 20 years’ time. Nice choice, isn’t it?
Water treatment on this scale means big, as in super-colossal, gigantic, money being spent. In theory, but not yet in practice, micro water treatment up and down the supply chain could cut costs, but the tech isn’t exactly rushing on to the market.
The much less obvious issue is creating a massive infrastructural monster to maintain. Treatment works when the infrastructure is kept able to do its job. In this case, that infrastructure has to work on a huge scale.
So a supply chain structure for managing contaminants makes a lot more sense. “Just rip out a faulty component and replace it” beats “rebuild the whole thing”, any time.
It really is your money or your life? Any theories on how to respond?
