Environmental Rights: Water pollution (C)

Water Waste Affect On Us And How We Can Improve The Situation

On January 26, 2025, we watched a documentary on water waste. This documentary taught us that water waste is a big problem in America and that we are slowly turning it into a desert. An example of water waste is how much we use in one day. Did you know that the average American uses 300 gallons per day?

We use a lot of water in our daily lives but there are many ways to cut back on water usage. First, let’s talk about cutting back on water waste in the kitchen. To not waste as much water when cleaning dishes don’t use the sink or rinse them before using a dishwasher because those methods waste the most amount of water, so I recommend to directly put the dishes into the dishwasher so you use the least amount of water. For showering I recommend using a flow reducer to reduce water used in a shower. For sinks, you can use an aerator to reduce water usage and finally, for toilets, some models use less water when flushed. These methods can help us cut down on water waste

The Water Crisis Documentary

For this fieldwork me and my group watched a documentary about water waste and how we can cut down on using so much water. I learned a lot about how to cut down on water usage. For example, you can just put your dishes into the dishwasher instead of rinsing them first, you can also put in toilets that flush less water down. I learned that the average American uses 88 gallons inside and 112 gallons outside. I also learned a lot about how to much water usage can effect our planet and how we live. For example, in San Francisco, because they are taking all the fresh water from the San Francisco Bay 6 species of fish are going endangered, also one side of the Hove Dam has dropped 200 feet in the last 20 years because it is being used a lot of agriculture and other things. Over all, this documentary has taught me a lot about how we can cut down water usage and why we should.

Interview with Eliza Zygmuntowicz

On December 19, 2024, we had an in-house interview with our science teacher, Eliza Zygmuntowicz. We asked about what Eliza has done as a scientist relating to water and ocean pollution, and important information about our topic.

Eliza has taught about water pollution, and also has taught about green infrastructure and planting near water. She talked about how it is important to know about this topic because only a small percentage of water is drinkable, and all the fresh water is frozen in glaciers, and is not accessible.

Something we learned is that water and ocean pollution affects us by plastic breaking down and entering our bodies, which can affect our health. We also learned that loose dirt can get into fish gills, which can kill fish. A major cause of water and ocean pollution is fertilizer getting into the ocean.

Something that I personally thought important was that water and ocean pollution affects communities of color and low-income communities because of environmental racism. The resources go to high-income communities, while the negative impact goes to low-income communities. A problem relating to low-income communities and water pollution is that people made reservoirs and pushed out the people who live there.

Interview with Eliza, our science teacher

At 9:00 me and my group (that consists of Me, Gio, and Masami) met with our science teacher in the principles office. We all sat down and we took turns asking her questions and writing down her answers like how much you know about water/ocean pollution and what organizations are helping stop it. We learned that water is being pulled from farther and farther away so eventually we will run out of places to get clean water. I also learned that we are consuming a lor of microplastics from the water we drink every day that can affect our health. After the interview we walked out the room with new information on who to talk to for our topic and just more knowledge of our water/ocean pollution all together.

Water polutions and how they affect us and what we can do to help

On December 19th, 2024, we Had an interview with Eliza on water pollution how it affects us, and what can we do to help. Water Pollution affects us because we do not have many ways of accessing drinking water this is due to only a small amount of water being drinkable and fresh most of the other sources of water are frozen in glaciers making it inaccessible.

In our time with Eliza, we also learned how pollution effects us and water animals like fish. Fish get affected by pollution due to loose dirt that gets into fish gills and makes it diffuclt for them to breathe. Water pollution affects the humans due to microplastics that can get into the water or food. Microplastics are bad becuase it can get broken down in our bodies and make us sick.

During this interview Eliza talked about envoirmental racism. Enviormental racism is when Low income comunities have worse reasourses becuase of the better reasourses going to more high income comunities.