Polluted water kills more people than wars

The lack of drinking water kills each year at least 1.8 million children under the age of 5 throughout the world, according to a UN report released yesterday on World Water Day.

Every day, about two million tones of domestic, industrial and agricultural waste contaminate two billion tons of water, poisoning marine life and spreading diseases that eventually kill, millions of children all over the world every year.

According to a report presented yesterday by the UN, the use and consumption of polluted water kills more than all forms of violence, including wars. ”These deaths are an affront to humanity and undermine the efforts of many countries to achieve development”, said the United Nations Secretary-General yesterday. To Ban Ki-Moon, it is an unacceptable situation, because "man already has enough scientific knowledge to better manage natural resources".

”Sick Water” Report

The ”Sick Water” Report of the UNEP Program for the Environment of the United Nations warns of the need for urgent action, particularly as urban populations will double in the next four decades from the current 3.4 billion people to 6 billion.

The problem is that in big cities they already have a lack of proper management of water waste, due to the aging of the system, failures in the infrastructure or inadequate drainage.

The UN report points out that diarrhea, mainly caused by dirty water, kills alone some 2.2 million people a year, adding that "more than half of the hospital beds are occupied by people whose diseases are water contamination related.

"If we plan to survive on a planet with 6 billion people and heading to more than 9 billion by 2050, we need to be smarter on the management of domestic waste. The sewers are literally killing people," said the Director of UNEP, Achim Steiner.