Water, as we know it, is the most essential basic necessity for the creation, existence, and sustainability of life for every known living creature and also for a wide number of aquatic sports lovers. A recent interview with Andreas Fath, who is a professor in the Faculty of Medical and Life Sciences at Furtwangen University, an expert at water protection, open water swimmer, and an arena ambassador, gives us an insight into the current state of the waters and how to make an impacting difference on our daily lives by taking care of water.
In the interview, he stated that the water in Europe wasn’t an as urgent issue as it was compared to the 80s but still needed care and tending. “Droughts and water shortage,” he says, “as well as high nitrate concentrations, antibiotic concentrations, and increasing PFAS concentrations in ground waters, are the challenges of our time.” He stressed the fact that we as the human race need radical changes from centralized wastewater treatment to decentralized treatment.
For how we can produce water, he quoted from a song called “The Three R’s” with the saying “reduce, reuse, recycle”. He also mentioned the use of plastics in recent years, saying that “it has a direct impact on water quality because of the transformation of macroplastic, mainly plastic litter, into microplastic, which ends up in waters, reducing biodiversity and contaminating food“.
For the rest of the interview, he went on about tips for protecting water with small daily changes in our lives. Some of them include not wasting water, reducing the amount of plastics in wrappings and packaging and if bought differentiating them before throwing them out, joining water clean-up events, and last but not least, raising awareness.
By preventing or at the very least limiting the plastic wastes, we stop them from being exported to Asia, where they will be dumped into the seas. Only by doing this and spreading the word to people, which can have the capacity to reach millions if done as organized campaigns or even a word passed between friends and influences, we could stop tons of plastic waste from entering the waters and thus straying away from situations like the 80’s and not raising the need for urgent needs. Simple things we do can help sustain life and not force us into taking bigger actions to save our waters.
