Planet earth is being endangered by anthropogenic activities ranging from industrial activities to seemingly innocous activities such as use of herbicides on farms.There are possibilities that the resources of the earth may not be sufficient to sustain the needs of future generations.There are also possibilities that the earth may become in conducive for human habitation due to emission of dangerous gases and the rising global temperature.
As a result of these,there is a need for all hands to be on deck to ensure that recommendations made during the Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992 are implemented on a global scale to ensure that the earth is preserved for the currrent and future generations.
Introduction
The thoughts coursed through my mind as I sprayed the herbicide on the grasses in front of my house. I was wondering about the long term effects of the herbicide on the food web. The short term goal was to kill the weeds , but the long term effects could be devastating. The herbicide might remain in the ground for some time unchanged. If it rains before the herbicide is broken down into safe elements, then the run-off water might carry the poison into the nearest water bodies from where it could travel limitless distances causing extensive pollution as it travels among the water bodies.
Apart from the effect of run-off water, the herbicide can seep where it is till it reaches underground water. The polluted underground water can flow through underground channels till it reaches more water bodies resulting in catastrophic consequences. Worse still, the underground water could be pumped up via wells and boreholes resulting in literal consumption of poison if the water is not treated. A case related to this was the discovery in Wake Forest, North Carolina, United States that families have been drinking from private wells contaminated with a carcinogenic chemical called Trichloroethylene. A manufacturing company had dumped the chemical in the area and it found its way into the underground water. This poisonous water was consumed for years by innocent residents of the area.
Another chilling scenario that could play out is if consumables like vegetables are planted on the soil on which the herbicide is applied, then, there are possibilities that traces of the herbicides can find their way into the vegetables. This has been confirmed scientifically with the analysis of heavy metal content of plants growing on polluted soils. The implication is that people who consume such products are dying, albeit slowly.
It is amazing how such a simple task as the application of a herbicide can have such grievous actual and potential consequences. Life expectancy in many countries of the world is shrinking because of undue exposure to chemicals. I remember once watching a man handle a drum of caustic soda with only rubber hand gloves as protection! That section of the company was aptly called ‘house of death’. The task given to the man was clearly a suicidal one. Unfortunately, this case is not an isolated one.
In developing countries, it is common to see companies paying lip service to health, safety and environment guidelines. Highly toxic effluents are discharged directly into water bodies while the regulators look the other way. People over rate the ability of the environment to act as natural sink for man-made pollution. Flowing streams, for example, have the ability of self-purification. However, this ability depends on factors such as water temperature,pH, volume of waste, access of sunlight through the water body, speed of the water, chemical content of the water and so on.
The fact is that there is a limit to the amount of waste that can be processed per unit of time by nature. If the ideal volume is exceeded, then ,the waste could be retained in the environment for undesirable period of time, hazardously affecting fauna and flora.