Polution

W. H. Auden, a British poet, famously said, “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” though we all understand how important water is to life, we nevertheless waste it. Around 80% of the world's wastewater is discharged back into the environment, mostly untreated, damaging rivers, lakes, and seas.

Our health is at stake due to the prevalent problem of water contamination. More deaths occur each year from unsafe water rather than from war and all other forms of violence combined. Having fewer than 1% of the world's freshwater and few trustworthy sources of drinkable water, by 2050, when it is anticipated that the worldwide demand for freshwater will be one-third higher than it is currently if nothing is done, the problems would only worsen.

Pollution of the water is when a stream, river, lake, ocean, aquifer, or other body of water get contaminated by hazardous substances—often chemicals or microorganisms—and lose quality, becoming poisonous to both humans and the environment. 

One of the main causes of water contamination is the incorrect disposal of solid waste. Solid waste is produced by individuals, household, commercial, institutional, and industrial operations and includes garbage, litter, electronic waste, plastics, and waste from building and demolition. The issue is particularly severe in underdeveloped nations since there may be insufficient infrastructure for efficient disposal of solid waste, as well as insufficient resources or regulations to prevent improper disposal. In some locations, it's purposeful to dump solid garbage into bodies of water. If trash or other waste is transported to bodies of water by animals, wind, or rainfall, land pollution may also turn into water pollution.

It is possible for significant amounts of solid waste pollution in inland waterways to finally reach the ocean. Pollution from solid waste is obtrusive, detrimental to the wellbeing of aquatic habitats, and may directly affect species. Numerous solid wastes, including electronic and plastic garbage, degrade and release hazardous chemicals into the environment, making them a source of toxic or hazardous waste.

Marine pollution is becoming a bigger issue. Chemicals and rubbish are the two main sources of pollution in our ocean. 

Chemical contamination, often known as nutrient pollution, is problematic for the environment, human health, and the economy. This kind of pollution happens when human activities, particularly the application of fertiliser on farms, cause chemical runoff into waterways that eventually empty into the ocean. Algal blooms are stimulated by the elevated levels of chemicals in the coastal water, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be hazardous to wildlife and dangerous to humans. Algal blooms have a severe impact on the ecosystem and human health, which hurts the local fishing and tourism sectors.

All manmade items that wind up in the water, the majority of which are made of plastic, are considered marine waste. This debris, which comes from sources on land in 80 percent of cases, accumulates as a result of carelessness, storm impacts, and poor waste management. Numerous plastic goods, such as shopping bags and plastic bottles, together with cigarette butts, bottle caps, food wrappers, and fishing equipment, are examples of common maritime garbage. Being such a persistent contaminant, plastic waste is particularly harmful. Decomposition of plastic products might take hundreds of years.

Both people and animals are at risk from this garbage. In the waste, fish become entangled and hurt, and some animals mistakenly eat this garbage, like plastic bags thinking it's food. Microplastic, or very small fragments of degraded plastic, is consumed by small creatures, which then take the chemicals in the plastic and absorb them into their tissues.

Today's civilization uses a lot of disposable and single-use plastic, including plastic bottles, shipping boxes, and shopping bags. The process of altering society's perspective on plastic consumption will be drawn out and fiscally difficult. In contrast, some items might make cleanup impossible. Numerous trash kinds, including some plastics, do not float and are therefore lost in the depths of the ocean. Preventing pollution before it happens and cleaning up after it does would be the ideal solution, although almost impossible.

The problem of ocean and water pollution has gotten worse than in previous years, but it is still something that has to be discussed and is still not given the serious consideration that it merits.

The photographic work of Brandon Seidler, who highlights the harm that humans have inflicted on the environment by photographing natural landscapes that have been changed by chemical pollution and then soaking the film in the same harsh chemicals that were discovered at the location, served as the inspiration for this piece.

When the film is processed, the various acids also damage it, producing distorted, unsettling images of a world altered by manmade toxins.

Photography: Luna

Make-up: Luna

Model: Sofia Silva