Textile industry is the second most polluting

The concept of “fast fashion” has boosted clothing consumption over the last quarter of a century. This is a very aggressive model for the environment, which has led the textile industry to become the second most polluting in the world. The situation is beginning to change, but the supposed circularity is still a long way off.

If you are planning a trip to Chile this summer and decide to visit the stunning Atacama Desert, you will be surprised by an unwanted attraction. Thousands of tonnes of textile waste accumulate in what has become the world’s largest used clothing dump.

Unfortunately, it is not the only one. As Greenpeace reports, every year a huge amount of clothing ends up in landfills in far-flung places. And this problem is just the tip of the iceberg of the damage the textile sector causes to the environment.

Over the last quarter of a century, the “fast fashion” model promoted by giants such as Inditex, based on a high turnover of cheap, low-quality clothes, has driven clothing consumption through the roof. In the European Union, for example, the amount of clothes bought per person has increased by 40% since 1996. Each year, Europeans consume 26 kg of textiles and discard 11 kg, most of which are incinerated or end up in landfill. Only a tiny amount of clothing is recycled. 

The second most polluting industry

The so-called circularity of the fashion industry is still a long way off. As the UN warned in 2019, it is the second most polluting sector in the world in several areas, after oil. And data from the European Parliament point in the same direction.

For a start, dyes and finishing products are responsible for 20% of global drinking water pollution. Some substances used to colour clothes end up in rivers, with the consequent impact on their flora and fauna. A paradigmatic case is that of Bangladesh, where rivers such as the Buriganga have periodically changed colour due to the hundreds of tanneries installed on their banks.

Another issue is the enormous amount of water resources required by the textile industry: to produce a single cotton T-shirt, 2,700 litres of water are needed, the same as a person drinks in several years. Cotton is one of the most water-intensive crops in the world.

The situation does not improve in the case of synthetic fibres such as polyester and nylon. Although in these cases the water consumption is lower, their carbon footprint increases as they are derived from petroleum. In total, it is estimated that the fashion industry generates 10 % of global CO₂ emissions.

Furthermore, the washing of synthetic clothing, which is not biodegradable, releases half a million tonnes of microfibres every year. This is 35% of the primary microplastics that end up in the oceans, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Towards a more circular sector

Environmental organisations are calling for a paradigm shift in the textile industry to make it more sustainable and for an international agreement to ban the export of textile waste.

The European Union has already urged governments to establish stricter laws on the production and recycling of clothing to reduce its ecological footprint. In fact, EU countries are obliged to have a separate collection of textiles by 2025 and the circular economy action plan aims for a fully carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

The European strategy includes new eco-design requirements for textile products, clearer consumer information and a digital passport for garments. The idea is to make manufacturers responsible for their products along the entire value chain and to make it easier for consumers to choose more sustainable clothing thanks to the Ecolabel.

Beyond the regulatory framework, individual awareness is crucial. In this respect, a recent OCU survey gives grounds for optimism, with 36% of respondents already avoiding “fast fashion” brands, 84% saying they do not buy more clothes than necessary and 89% donating or recycling their clothes. If the trend takes hold, perhaps the Atacama Desert can remain just that: a desert.

If you want to wash your clothes without polluting the planet, 11Onze Recommends Natulim.

More than 3,000 tonnes of gold are mined globally every year. However, the mining industry faces growing problems related to climate change, from the management of increasingly scarce water in some areas to landslides and dam failures in other regions due to increasingly torrential rains.

No one can deny that gold mines pollute. The use of materials such as mercury or cyanide in the extraction process poses a risk to the environment. In addition, these mines generate a large amount of greenhouse gases because huge amounts of energy are needed to process so many tonnes of material.

Despite this negative contribution to climate change, it is also true that gold is playing an important role in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Among other applications, gold improves the efficiency of solar panels, gold catalysts are used to convert CO₂ into fuel, and gold nanoparticles boost the performance of hydrogen batteries.

An industry vulnerable to climate change

Because of its great value and utility, it seems impossible to do without the precious metal par excellence. But its extraction is not immune to the effects of global warming and extreme weather events. A report by the World Gold Council outlines the main risks of climate change for gold mining and the people who make a living from it.

Acute physical impacts typically manifest themselves in the form of weather events such as tropical storms, forest fires, droughts and floods, while chronic impacts refer to long-lasting changes in, for example, average air or land temperature, sea level, water acidification or soil quality. The combined effects of both types of risk cannot be ignored, amplifying the threat to mining infrastructure processes and local communities.

It should be borne in mind that gold mines play a crucial role in the economic and social development of some emerging economies. Moreover, some of the nations that host these mining operations are among the most vulnerable to the destructive effects of climate change and associated extreme weather events. 

The drama of water

Water management has been identified as a key issue for gold mines, as a large amount of water is required in the processing of extracted minerals. Increased drought in many areas of the world can lead to conflicts with local people over the sharing of this scarce commodity, as well as increased salinity of water, which increases the corrosion of processing plant equipment.

Increased extreme rainfall is also a risk, as it can lead to the flooding of tailings dams and pits, as has happened recently in some mines in Africa and Australia, or the overflowing of tailings dams.

Several mines in Peru have warned of the risk of increased rainfall causing landslides (and in particular mudslides), which would require increased safety measures in the design of storage ponds, walls and embankments. 

Rising temperatures

Rising average temperatures, reflected in the number of days exceeding the heat stress index, are having an impact on the safety, well-being and productivity of workers. One example is the increase in diseases linked to hot climates, such as malaria and yellow fever.

The efficiency and performance of mining equipment are also being affected by rising thermometers. In regions such as Turkey, Greece, Brazil, Australia and North America, which are at high risk of extreme heat, more frequent equipment breakdowns are expected. In addition, more energy will be needed to cool underground mines and surface buildings and facilities.

In parts of Canada, where frozen ground makes it easier for drill rigs to access, rising temperatures pose a different set of challenges. Freeze-thaw cycles will affect process engineering and asset maintenance programmes.

In addition, climate change is a factor in mine closure and biodiversity restoration programmes, as rising temperatures can reduce the effectiveness of these programmes and extreme precipitation can erode rehabilitated areas. 

Complications for energy supply

According to the report, energy supply will be significantly disrupted by long-term temperature increases, which cause additional wear and tear on systems. In addition, weather events such as storms and fires can affect power lines or communications-related infrastructure.

A severe storm in 2018 caused the collapse of power lines supplying a mine in South Africa. Backup generators were also damaged during a power surge in a shaft, leaving personnel without emergency power, who could not be lifted to the surface until temporary power lines were installed two days later.

Moreover, both low reservoir levels and rising sea levels are affecting the production of hydroelectric power from which some gold mines are fed.

In the face of all these climate change-related risks, mining companies have no choice but to take steps to improve the planning and design of their infrastructure, as well as increase their engagement with local communities, as the World Gold Council report highlights.

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The number of people living in slave-like conditions has been growing steadily since 2016 and it is no secret that mass production of cheap goods often relies on factories in developing countries where people work in subhuman conditions. So why do we continue to ignore the issue as consumers?

The latest estimates from the Global Slavery Index’s annual report indicate that 50 million people worldwide are victims of modern slavery and that almost 10 million more men, women, girls and boys have been forced into labour or marriage since 2016.

Although modern slavery can take many forms, regarding labour, we refer to it as a condition of exploitation whereby a person, today, is forced to work in subhuman conditions without being able to refuse because of coercion, threats or abuse of power, among others.

Tragedies such as the one in Bangladesh in 2013, when the Rana Plaza building collapsed, killing 1134 people and injuring 2500, or the fire at the school bag factory in Delhi in 2019, where dozens of workers who produced goods and garments for Western clothing brands died, exposed the role of the fashion industry in modern slavery.

It is a secret that has been hidden in plain sight for years. From raw materials to manufacturing to packaging to delivery, modern slavery is embedded in the supply chains of the global garment industry that meets consumer demand in Europe, the United States and other developed economies.

The human cost of fast fashion

The fast fashion business model, initially popularised by large chains such as Zara and H&M and recently joined by other brands such as Shein and Temu, is based on mass production and consumption that increases at the same speed as changing trends. Consumers buy clothes that are fashionable but of low quality and low cost.

The brands that offer this type of articles change their products frequently. To maximise profits, they carry out a policy of offshoring by manufacturing them in developing countries, paying workers low wages and even ignoring shortcomings in terms of safety or working conditions.

This production model is not only very aggressive towards the environment and has led the textile industry to become the second most polluting in the world but entails complex and opaque supply chains, many of them marred by forced labour.

Our responsibility as consumers

Today’s globalised supply chains indeed make it almost impossible to prevent the goods or services we consume from being free from the scourge of exploitation or even slavery. Still, this cannot be an excuse for shirking our responsibility as consumers to inform ourselves about how a product is made, rather than simply choosing the cheapest one.

Cultural relativism or the trivialisation of the concept of slavery can help us to lessen our sense of guilt, but these semantic gymnastics cannot let us forget that, as consumers, we can play an important role in fostering collective awareness through responsible shopping and demanding more concrete actions from big brands to tackle a systemic problem that we have all perpetuated.

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If you are concerned about the quality of the water your family drinks, you most likely carry large quantities of carafes or bottles of mineral water that over a year cost you more than 1,000 euros. With a tap water filter, you can continue to enjoy quality water, reduce your expenses by 15 times, help the planet and save yourself backaches.

Saving doesn’t necessarily mean depriving yourself of a lot of things. It often means avoiding unnecessary cost overruns on essential products. That’s why 11Onze Essentials was created, so you can cut costs on products you can’t do without. 

The first of these products available at the 11Onze website is related to water, the essential liquid of life. You need to drink two litres a day, and we usually end up buying a huge amount of bottles, with the consequent environmental impact due to the plastic waste. 

A family of four drinks an average of 2,920 litres of water per year. This means a minimum expenditure of 1,196 euros when averaging the prices of the most popular 1.5-litre bottles in the main supermarkets in Spain. 

In environmental terms, this consumption means more than 60 kg of plastic dumped on the planet and a similar amount of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere during manufacture and transport. 

More than a thousand euros in savings

Is it possible to drink good quality, good-tasting water, save money and help preserve the planet? The answer is yes. As simple as replacing bottled water consumption with filtered water. The Tappwater filter, which is made of 70% from coconut shells, captures up to 100 substances that can be found in tap water, including heavy metals. 

In terms of economic savings, the simple installation of this filter, which does not require any tools, is equivalent to a saving of more than 1,100 euros per year for a family of four. From almost 1,200 euros for the purchase of bottled water to less than 90 euros. 

The kit with the filter and the necessary refills for the annual consumption costs 79.99 euros. And you only have to add less than 10 euros of tap water consumption, taking into account that the average price of tap water in Spain is approximately 0.0019 euros per litre and that you can filter up to 4,800 litres with the Tappwater annual pack.

The planet also gets less plastic and CO₂. 

In addition, you can save the environment around 1,947 of plastic bottles that you don’t have to carry home and 63 kg of CO₂. And you also ensure that your water is free of the microplastics that can be released from plastic containers when they degrade due to environmental heat, and which have been shown to already be present in our bloodstream. 

All Tappwater products undergo stringent quality tests before being shipped to customers, and therefore come with a one-year guarantee.

If you want to discover how to drink the best water, save money and help the planet, go to 11Onze Essentials.

Freight transport continues to boom, driven by a globalised economic model. Supply chains have become more complex and greenhouse gas emissions have soared in recent years. Only a change in our consumption habits can reverse the trend.

Globalisation and the rise of trade has meant that billions of tonnes of freight are moved around the world every year by trucks, ships, trains and planes. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated in 2018 that this movement of goods generates 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and up to 11% if we include those produced in warehouses. If no action is taken, freight transport will become the most polluting sector by 2050.

Land transport, mainly by lorries and vans, accounts for 62% of these emissions. Although the fuel used in maritime transport is much more polluting, the fact that the carrying capacity per vehicle is much lower in land transport makes it much more inefficient from an environmental point of view. For the same amount of cargo and distance, road transport generates more than 100 times more CO₂ than maritime transport.

Moreover, road freight transport is a fast-growing sector, partly due to the rise of e-commerce and home delivery. And it is the most difficult transport segment to decarbonise, as the use of clean energy is much less developed than in passenger transport.

The law of the sea

Maritime transport is the backbone of world trade. In 2018, 11 billion tonnes of goods were transported by sea and related CO₂ emissions amounted to more than 700 million tonnes.

The importance of this sector is such that it was left out of the 2016 Paris Agreement and is projected to account for up to 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 if no action is taken. Demand for raw materials and container transport is growing all the time. 

Large ships run on highly polluting fossil fuels, especially heavy fuel oil, which contains high amounts of sulphur, ash, heavy metals and other toxic residues.

A problem called sulphur

Until 2020, the maximum limit for sulphur in marine fuels was 3.5%, while the EU limit for road fuels is 0.00001%. ‘The Guardian’ published a revealing statistic a few years ago: 15 of the world’s largest ships polluted as much as 760 million cars.

After years of consultation, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) reduced the maximum allowed level of sulphur in ship fuel from 3.5 % to around 0.5 % in 2020. However, the expectation that maritime freight traffic will continue to increase to double 2005 levels by 2050 significantly reduces the scope of this measure.

More pollution

IMO reports published in recent years have revealed that, instead of decreasing, emissions from ships have increased by 10% since 2008 and will continue to do so. If all shipping were a country, it would be the sixth most polluting in the world, ahead of Germany. 

The Marine Environment Protection Committee of this organisation proposed in 2020 a partial reduction of CO₂ emissions for this decade and to extend the reduction to 50% in 2050. However, the organisation that regulates international maritime traffic ignored the recommendations and only agreed on short-term, non-binding measures. 

As a consequence of this, CO₂ emissions from cargo ships will continue to grow in the coming years. If the shipping industry does not implement green strategies, its greenhouse gas production will increase by 15% by 2030. And if it follows the IMO recommendations, this percentage will hardly change. 

In this context, the only solution to curb the impact of freight transport on the environment involves changes in our personal consumption habits: above all, reducing the volume and weight of our purchases, and prioritising local products.

If you want to wash your clothes without polluting the planet, 11Onze Recommends Natulim.

Whether it is because of the work situation or because they want to live near metropolitan areas, more and more people are choosing to live in smaller apartments. However, living in a small apartment can make it easier to live in an environmentally friendly apartment. We analyze how we can have a sustainable home in a few square meters.

According to the website of Architectural Digest magazine, it is increasingly common to opt for this trend of housing with a minimalist touch. They are called micro homes. First, because they are economical and secondly, because they represent a sustainable lifestyle, where less is more. In this type of home we find everything we need to live and they invite us to do so without burdening us with unnecessary objects. To get us started and to show us how we can have a sustainable micro home, the same website Architectural Digest, proposes and makes several tips and observations.

• Sustainability, an essential factor

Energy consumption is an added value to these homes since they do not require high electricity consumption. On the other hand, it is necessary to make the spaces of the house very adapted to the needs of the people who live there and their lifestyle, together with multifunctional furniture that can be a good ally when it comes to storage. An important recommendation is the size of the windows; there must be few but big instead of many and small. It is also highly recommended to increase the feeling of space in the micro dwelling by having several mirrors. Journalist Sara Barragan, author of the Architectural Digest article, also reminds us of the importance of using a good palette of neutral colours, both on the walls and on the floor of the home.

According to Sustainable Architecture, aero thermal energy is a renewable energy source that harnesses the energy of the air to produce hot water and make use of heating in order to enjoy a good air conditioning in our micro home.

But to finish having a sustainable micro home we must follow some more recommendations. We have visited the Sustainable Architecture website that gives us a series of tips to rehabilitate our home in a sustainable way. First of all, you should get good insulation of the walls. To check them well and not to take that for granted from the beginning is part of the success. Next, we must ensure that the windows provide us with the light we want and that they are properly insulated, either by using gaskets, or by changing the glass. A more expensive solution, but in this case, it is necessary to think about the benefit and the well-being that they will provide us. The installations are also important, it is necessary to review the electrical installation by a qualified person to know if the home is prepared for the power we need and check if changing the electrical installation we will have a greater energy efficiency. Plumbing, as the Sustainable Architecture website reminds us, is no less important. Do not hesitate to replace the old lead pipes with new stainless steel or ceramic ones if necessary. Finally, they remind us that in a small apartment we can not have renewable energy without first consulting with our community of neighbours. That is why Sustainable Architecture advises us to install an aero thermal system. These systems are a source of renewable energy that harnesses the energy of the air to produce hot water and make use of heating in order to enjoy a good climate in our micro home.

The famous Tiny Houses have less than 40 square meters and just as it happens with the needs of a sustainable and not very big house, this type of home gives us all the necessary comforts we need.

• And for those who are looking for small treasures …

Along with the idea of how to make our homes a small paradise of sustainability, we also want to recommend some pages where you can learn about the small houses of the future: the so-called Tiny houses. They have less than 40 m² and just as it happens with the needs of a sustainable and not very big house, this type of home gives answer to all the necessary comforts to live.

With this fashion on the rise, there are many websites that offer solutions for this type of home according to your personal needs. If we look online we can find more modern ones, such as this French website, called Tiny House Bimfy; and for the most sophisticated ones, the Nordic Houses website offers the possibility to buy tiny houses made in Finland with transport included. These tiny homes made in Finland, in addition to having all the comforts we need to live, stand out especially for their solutions in relation to thermal insulation.

So, whether designing, reforming or taking the decision to buy a Tiny House, the ecological and sustainable mini houses are also, if you will, the future knocking on the door.

The President of the Federació de Cooperatives Agràries de Catalunya (FCAC), Ramon Sarroca, defends the country’s agricultural cooperative model as a fundamental pillar. One hundred years after its emergence, it has successfully faced up to globalisation and industrialisation, but it still does not allow food sovereignty for the territory.

In recent decades, phenomena such as globalisation, digitalisation and industrialisation have accelerated social and economic changes which, in most cases, have not been transferred to rural areas. The paradox lies in the fact that it is precisely on the countryside that our survival depends. On an agrarian scale, Catalonia is a small and diverse country.

This is how Sarroca explains it to us, stressing that smallholder production in our territory cannot be compared with the large hectares of land found in Latin American countries, for example. This, together with the conditions of the land, the climate and the types of crops, means that agricultural production in Catalonia is not sufficient in relation to market demand.

Far from food sovereignty

Sarroca calculates that, even if all Catalan production were to remain in the region, it would perhaps be possible to supply just over half of the population. Thus, food sovereignty in Catalonia is a long way off, not only in terms of production but also in terms of consumption. Despite the fact that the pandemic has slightly altered consumption patterns and has had a greater impact on local products and local purchases, the reality is that this change is not enough for the agricultural sector: “We have a short memory, we are trying to go back to doing the same things, with the same guidelines, as before the pandemic,” Sarroca points out. 

And he adds that, in addition to opting for local produce, the first filter that should be taken into account as consumers is to buy seasonal produce. “For many years now we in the cooperative world have been trying to explain that it is not normal to eat peaches or cherries in Catalonia in December,” Sarroca laments. Doing so, We promote the growth of imports and reduce the strength of local producers, who see year after year how the four big state distributors control almost everything that the end consumer eats.

Counting on the countryside

Another issue of concern for the agricultural sector is the new energy transition model that is being proposed and, in some cases, implemented in Catalonia. The debate revolves around the fact that a large surface area is needed for renewable energies, and the question is whether this has to be done by sacrificing agricultural land, as Sarroca denounces. He explains that in Catalonia there are areas where the conditions of the land make it impossible to grow crops. Similarly, there are industrial estate roofs, roads and other infrastructures that could perform the same function and, at the same time, contribute to preserving agricultural land.

Sarroca warns that “a cohesive rural world is the one that has to provide peace of mind in the urban world.” Health, education, job opportunities or access to banking… Cooperatives open up the range of actions that can be carried out to influence, directly or indirectly, in all these areas, and ensure that the rural world really is the social and economic engine to drive the country forward.

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Clean hydrogen is presented as the fuel of the future, promising to provide carbon-neutral energy. However, it is not the first time that hydrogen has been hailed as the energy of the future only to run up against high production costs and difficulties with transport and storage, delaying its market introduction. Is it here to stay?

Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels, usually by the process of reforming with natural gas, is mainly used in the chemical and refining industry, and its production is responsible for the emission of 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Yet it is less toxic and more easily dispersed than natural gas.

While clean hydrogen will largely avoid this pollution, there are still drawbacks to be addressed. Currently, hydrogen storage requires extremely high pressure and is therefore too expensive and inefficient for widespread use in the automotive industry.

China, known as the Asian giant and the world’s leading producer of hydrogen made from hydrocarbons, and other countries such as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Spain, and Chile are beginning to make the transition to clean hydrogen with multi-million dollar projects that suggest green hydrogen is here to stay.

What is green hydrogen?

Although hydrogen is the most abundant chemical element in the universe, and the third most abundant on the Earth’s surface after oxygen and silicon, it is not a primary energy form per se, but a chemical compound, which exists in combination with other elements, and which can have energy uses.

Just as conventional hydrogen obtained from hydrocarbons requires large amounts of energy and is a costly process, clean hydrogen, also known as renewable hydrogen or e-hydrogen, is generated from electricity from renewable energy sources, through a process called electrolysis of water. Electrolysis is a chemical process that uses electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen in the water.

The fact that it emits no pollutant gases when produced makes it 100% sustainable, but the production costs are higher than with traditional hydrogen. Despite this, energy experts expect the price of clean hydrogen production to drop considerably over the next few years to match that of hydrogen produced from hydrocarbons.

The European Union does not want to be left behind

Europe wants to avoid losing its leadership in green hydrogen to China, as happened with solar panels. To this end, it has launched an industrialisation plan within the framework of the Horizon Europe project, to promote and accelerate research and development of green hydrogen with an initial investment of 2 billion euros.

The aim of the project is to scale up green hydrogen electrolysers, which are used to split water into hydrogen, and thus reduce the cost of a technology that is currently too expensive to compete in the market. The goal is to build hydrogen clusters deployed across Europe, and to bring together hydrogen-related infrastructures, as has been done with the electricity grid.

The introduction of new renewable energy sources in the coming years will be crucial for the environment. We, the common people and the planet, can now welcome the geopolitical competition between the major global economic powers to lead this new energy source.

11Onze is the fintech community of Catalonia. Open an account by downloading the super app El Canut on Android and Apple and join the revolution!

Although health authorities insist that tap water is completely safe, many people warn that there is a lack of thorough controls. Heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals and microplastics pose a risk to our health.

In December 2020, the European Parliament adopted the Drinking Water Directive to improve the quality of tap water and reduce the consumption of bottled water. This directive provided for the imposition of stricter limits for certain contaminants, such as lead. It also envisaged the establishment of a list of substances or compounds of concern to the public and the scientific community for monitoring. 

However, the truth is that, almost a year and a half later, the European Commission has still not drawn up this list, which should include pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors and microplastics that can damage our health.

It is still difficult to find colourless, odourless and tasteless tap water. In most cases, tap water contains many substances, from the chlorine used to make it drinkable, which can give the water a characteristic bad taste, to more harmful substances such as heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, microplastics, bacteria and viruses.

Routine controls only check the levels of those pollutants that are already legislated, but they are a small part. For example, the Outbiotics project, which is being developed in Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque Country and the south of France, has found antibiotics such as amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, enrofloxacin, azithromycin, sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim in pre-drinking natural waters.

Studies such as the one published in the prestigious journal ‘Environmental Health’ make clear the need to reduce perfluoroalkyl substances in tap water worldwide to improve our health, as they are considered endocrine disruptors.

Persistent heavy metals

Industrial and mining activity releases toxic metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and chromium, which can reach aquifers and rivers, contaminating soil and accumulating in plants and organic tissues. Exposure to these elements is linked to health problems such as various types of cancer, kidney damage and developmental delays.

Lead can also infiltrate drinking water through corrosion of service pipes, chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures with lead solder.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the maximum level of this heavy metal in drinking water should be zero, “because lead is a toxic metal that can harm human health, even at low exposure levels” and can “bioaccumulate in the body over time”.

Children are particularly vulnerable to lead, as they absorb it more easily than adults and its renal elimination is less effective. Lead can affect their brain development, reduce their ability to concentrate and affect their academic performance. 

The invasion of microplastics

A study conducted by the news organisation Orb Media in collaboration with researchers from the State University of New York and the University of Minnesota shows that microplastics have been finding their way into tap water around the world for years.

Already, 83% of drinking water samples collected in five continents over the past decade contained microplastics. The United States had the highest contamination rate and, although Europe’s has the lowest, it had still very high (72%). The average number of plastic fibres found in every 500 ml of water ranged from 4.8 in the US to 1.9 in Europe.

Uncontrolled pesticides

A recent report by Ecologistas en Acción denounces the poor control of chemical substances suspected of contaminating drinking water. This is the case with many pesticides, herbicides and biocides.

Sulphur, which is the most widely used in the countryside, has not been tested for in any of the water analyses carried out by Spanish municipalities in recent years. The same applies to substances as common in agriculture and livestock farming such as metam sodium (only one search was recorded in 2019), copper oxychloride, paradine oil, copper hydroxide and propamocarb.

In addition, the report criticises the lack of a legal obligation to carry out complete analyses in small populations and their unreliability due to the absence of quantified limits and the lack of accreditation of the contracted laboratories. This organisation has noted the absence of complete controls even in municipalities declared by the autonomous communities themselves as vulnerable to nitrates.

If you want to discover how to drink the best water, save money and help the planet, go to 11Onze Essentials.

Plastic waste is already forming huge islands in the sea and has even reached the depths of the ocean. This dumping is an ecological tragedy that some initiatives are trying to mitigate. The health of our seas and of humanity itself is at stake.

The UN estimates that by 2050 the oceans will contain more plastic than fish. Every year, ten million tonnes of plastic waste of all kinds, such as bottled water packaging, end up in the sea.

This has led to the formation of large “islands” of plastic in the water. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, suffice it to say that the largest of these islands is located in the Pacific and is three times the size of France. 

The consequences are dramatic for the planet because many marine animals ingest this plastic and more than a million die each year from it.

Microplastics, which are smaller than 5 millimetres in size, can even enter our bodies through the fish we eat. The consequences range from oxidative stress in our cells to DNA damage.

Three successful initiatives

Civil society is therefore coming up with more and more initiatives to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the oceans, damaging marine life, contributing to climate change, and polluting an essential resource such as water.

One example is the Water Heroes FC programme, promoted by Xylem and Manchester City. This project, in which Pep Guardiola participates, seeks to raise public awareness of water issues and promotes actions to mitigate them. One of its initiatives, “Plogging with Pep”, encourages the public to pick up litter while walking, running, or doing any other outdoor sport.

Another success story is the Surfrider Foundation Europe’s Ocean Initiatives. With 25 years of history, this volunteer programme mobilises 40,000 participants in 40 countries every year, who organise themselves to remove litter from beaches and waterways.

A third example is the Ocean Cleanup project, founded a decade ago by a young man in his early 20s. This involves floating structures that take advantage of currents to collect rubbish from rivers and oceans. Its ambitious goal is to eliminate 90 percent of floating plastic by 2040.

These are three examples of how we can help contain marine litter and mitigate ocean pollution. It should not be forgotten that they account for 97 percent of the planet’s water.

If you want to discover how to drink the best water, save money and help the planet, go to 11Onze Essentials.