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Just a related topic...

Remember the melamine food issue? I remember this morning show in a local channel around November. The hosts and guest artists were joined by doctors Lisa and Ong and the BFAD director Leticia Gutierrez. According to Dr. Ong, drinking 12 glasses of water daily can actually can avoid melamine-affected products. Dry foods are also better than the wet food, since the wet ones usually spoil much easily like mayonnaise, yoghurt and sauces.

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Thinking of IT. (Part 3)

A couple of really simple questions managed to boggle my mind today: What, Why and How. For one:

What is our site all about? I think our introduction answered that, though.

How do we propose to encourage our readers/followers to help in our advocacy --- in their own 'little' ways? We are focusing on garbage and chemical dumping in bodies of water, so we shared some of our experiences and advised people on how they can help, with as little effort as they can afford. A simple throw-your-trash-in-the-right-place is a really goooood start. :)

Why should you (our readers) choose to support our advocacy over others? What good can it really do to you right now?... and then I realize I'm stuck.

To tell the truth, each advocacy (yeahp, there are a LOT. Apparently, our whole Pisay Batch 2011 are making these things) presents an important issue that we WILL NEED to address sometime, if not soon. We, or rather I, don't know any 100%-certain way to get every person who reads about our site to follow it, and help spread the word. Your choice can also be directed towards your interests, or to which advocacy you can relate to when you have discussed or talked or thought about these things in class, et cetera. That doesn't mean we are going to give up though, for we know that these sort-of things can go far, if not very, VERY far. :D


For me, you need to support this advocacy because

• Water is essential to our life. We need, and always will need, water in our everyday activities: cooking, cleaning, eating, you name it. There is less than 1% of the world's water that really remains drinkable for over 6 trillion people. Would you really want to lessen it further?
• Water in itself, as was mentioned in one of our articles, is full of minerals and nutrients. However, purification and distillation may take away these natural nutrition and add 'artificial' ones.
• Continual disposal of garbage and chemicals into the sea can rise several economic crisis (e.g. red tide). Many in the Philippines fish for a living. Let these problems go on for several days, and you can't be sure if that seafood you're eating is safe.
• Improperly disposed trash can cause flooding and may even come into contact with our water supplies. Many diseases can be passed in such a manner, and infected water can even cause skin diseases in our baths. Flooding can also cause accidents, and may disrupt our schedules, specially if we're on the road a lot.

Those are some of the reasons why you should choose to follow this advocay and support it. You can save not only your life and the lives of your loved ones, but many others. You can help make sure that what you're having is safe and not toxic. You can help lessen the fatalities that people (who don't have access to clean water) are exposed to.

Support our site!! And you will learn. :)

Act now.

We have previously talked about many things about water. You have heard about these things many times already. Diseases, water crisis and many things due to water pollution. You now know the horrible effects of this environmental problem. Is this enough? Does it end here?

No. Knowing is not enough. You have to act to end this problem. But first you have to know its causes. Water pollutants are of different types but mostly four contributors are agriculture, natural, industrial pollutants and municipal. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and global warming are some of the natural pollutants. As a human, you cannot do anything about these natural calamities.

Agriculture is one of the major water pollutants. Animal wastes, pesticides and fertilizer often end up in streams, and rivers. This can be stopped by informing the farmers on proper waste disposal and the effects of water pollution.

Then comes the water pollution caused by the municipalities and industries. Industries dump toxic waste that have harmful effects on ecosystems and humans. Municipalities dump waste from the cities and residential areas to bodies of water. You might be one of these people who throw garbage to rivers and other bodies of water. We all know the case of Pasig River. This bad practice should be stopped. We need water, so let us protect it.

The point of this post is to say this. We are part of the problem we are facing. Let us begin now. We have to change our ways to combat this problem. Stop throwing your garbage at bodies of water. With this little act, you are helping reduce water pollution.

To Tap, or not to Tap?

Nowadays, the term purified water is very common among us. We perceive “purified water” as something pure, clean, and healthy, and that is true enough. Many people rely on this for their drinking water. Tap water, on the other hand, gathers the adjectives dirty, unsafe, full of pathogens, unhealthy, etc. We then start to wonder, what happened to the once source of drinking water for the people?

In the past, all of our water came from the tap. These were used for washing, cleaning, and yes, drinking. Back then, water companies maintain these waters well, and made sure that what we get in our homes was safe enough to be drunk. However, as our economy went down the hill, and the population grew larger, water companies cannot cope up with the growing demands of cleaner and safer water that could suffice all of the people, and so starts the declination of the quality of tap water.

Also, illegal connection of tubes from some communities of people further complicates the problem, as bacteria and other harmful pathogens could easily penetrate leaking tubes from these hastily and poorly-attached connections. Rust could also develop easily on these low-quality tubes utilized by the offenders, and so waters passing through these connections could be discolored by the rust.

However, as opposed to the fears of the population, studies and experiments done by the Metro Manila Drinking Water Quality Monitoring Committee as of 2007 [1] showed that the tap water is generally clean and safe to drink from. According to the MWSS-Regulatory Office, tests made showed that the water source and supplies of the cities contained no traces of bacteria that caused water-borne illnesses.

Purified water, on the other hand, is the most popular choice among the people in our society. To many, as I have said a while ago, this is safe, pure, clean, etc, and so many people are attracted to patronizing them. I’m not saying that this is wrong, but let me share you some facts. An independent study done in some developed country shows that 50% of the bottled waters there, which claim they are purified, are actually bottled tap waters. What are the chances that the same fact doesn’t exist in the Philippines?

Also, true purified water is water that has gone through extensive purifying stages, meaning the water is purified up to the extent that they are simply water – pure water. When we drink water, what we get is the nourishment that our body needs not just against dehydration, but nourishment that minerals in those waters could provide us. When we purify water, some of these minerals and ions, like calcium, are naturally lost from the process, and so, as the purifying stages get longer, the fewer minerals we get from the water. These minerals and ions are usually found in potable water, which could be a tap water, etc.

Choosing from these two may sound fruitless, but actually it is not. Your small acts like this will make a difference, because both have pros and cons which you could affect you, and because this will determine whether you get the best out of the water you get, or not. The choice is still up to you, if you are “to tap, or not to tap?”

[1] Tap water safe to drink