Beyond just human health. Our lifestyle choices can cause damage to another major shared resource. The oceans and waterways of the world that we depend on. Having safe water systems is an important element not only for our own health, but for all of the plants and animals.
On top of the actively used nets, there are thousands of nets which escape from fisherman only to continue killing fish on the ocean floor. The Suzuki foundation offers programs to encourage volunteer divers to remove these escaped nets before they can harm marine life.
Water Pollution
more effective cleanup? Of course that would be a worthy cause. However what will undoubtedly surprise you is that these large oil spills make up less then 10 percent of the oil that humans leak into our oceans and waterways (link).
Given that a single litre of motor oil can pollute 1 million litres (1 gallon can pollute 1 million gallons) of water, (link) it’s all the more important to use as little of the substance as possible.
It’s not just petroleum that gets transported from our roads to our waterways. Car tires flake off bits of debris throughout their lifetime. These include toxic chemicals like styrene-butadiene which leaches into the oceans. (link)
Fossil fuels on the other hand, use water mainly for drilling and fracking. It’s impossible to tell how much is used, because the companies simply refuse to tell us.
