Jocelyn+Research

__** How Do We Stop Water Trash? **__
__ How to Stop Water Pollution at Home __ Sources of pollution in our water streams do not just come from grand scale oil spills. People do things everyday that cause pollution without realizing it.

__Properly Dispose of Chemicals__ Traditional cleaning products, laundry detergent and beauty products contain a host of chemicals. When these products are poured down household drains, they can be washed into streams and eventually deposited into larger bodies of water, affecting the wildlife that lives there.

__Do not Litter__ When you are spending time at the beach or on the lake, be careful not to let any waste, even biodegradable waste, end up in the water. Most parks have trash cans set up near the beaches, but you can bring your own trash bag with you to be on the safe side. []

Your role in improving water quality in Hong Kong is very important. On a practical level, you can reduce your overall water consumption in showers and clothes washing to reduce the amount of waste water.
 * http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/water/introtowater.htm**

__** What is water pollution? **__

Water pollution affects plants and organisms living in these [|bodies of water]; and, in almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual [|species] and populations, but also to the natural [|biological communities]. **[]**
 * Water pollution** is the contamination of [|water] bodies (e.g. [|lakes], [|rivers], [|oceans] and [|groundwater]). Water pollution occurs when [|pollutants] are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate [|treatment].

Although most people take water for granted, it's a valuable resource that can be exposed to contamination. Water pollution can harm marine and freshwater life and cause significant health problems. **http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/water/introtowater.htm**

__ **Improvements Made** __ The EPD has an extensive programme for cleaning up Hong Kong's waters which has had good results. The number of beaches meeting the Water Quality Objective for bathing water increased to 34 in 2007, compared with 26 in 1997. The number of river monitoring stations with bad or very bad water quality dropped, from 52 per cent in 1988, to less than 15 per cent in recent years.

**CONTROLLING WATER POLLUTION** Water quality improves only when we stop dumping untreated or inadequately treated sewage into the sea and the local rivers, streams and bays. The government has a three-pronged approach for dealing with the problem: controlling pollution at source, providing sewers, and collecting and treating sewage.
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__ **Impact** __

Worldwide, just under 900 million people lack reliable access to safe water that is free from disease and industrial waste. And forty percent do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. The result is one of the world's greatest public health crisis: 4,500 children die every day from waterborne diseases, more than from HIV-AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
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Water pollution is a major global problem. It has been suggested that it is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases,[|[][|1]and that it accounts for the deaths of more than 14,000 people daily. An estimated 700 million [|Indians] have no access to a proper toilet, and 1,000 Indian children die of diarrheal sickness every day.
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