In today’s post, we will talk about chemical pollution and look at one of the world’s most polluted water, the Citarum River located in Indonesia.
Chemical pollution
Chemical pollution is caused by the disposal of chemical substances into our water bodies and such actions often cause harmful effects to the ecological system. Chemical substances have become one of the major sources of pollution around the world. They can be organic or inorganic. Heavy metals, oil, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are some of the toxic chemical substances released into our environment.
Anthropogenic activities such as mining, oil extraction, processing industry, agricultural, and shipping are the main contributors discharging harmful chemical substances (Negri, Uthicke, & Mueller, 2011). The chemical pollutants can be transferred via the atmosphere, runoff of river or as direct disposal into the ocean.
Here is a short video about chemical pollution of the ocean.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0s-4YeE9I
Impacts on Marine Life
Aquatic life will be the one to bear the brunt of anthropogenic chemical pollution. When toxic pollutants are discharged to sea, the marine life is affected adversely and the toxic elements might accumulate in their bodies (Espinoza, 2014). As fish and other seafood products are a major source of protein for human and are highly consume across the globe, toxins make their way up the food chain and to our dining table.
As mentioned by Yarsan & Yipel (2013), fishery products that are contaminated by the pollutants undergo the effect of bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Bioaccumulation is the process which ascent contamination level due to the increase of exposure or absorption while biomagnification is increasing of substance concentration through food chain consumption. Therefore, although we have no direct contact with the pollutants, we as the top predator of the food chain risk the possibility of being affected by the chemical substances.
For example, the Citarum River serves as the main source of water supply for approximately 10 million people (Sudarningsih et al., 2019). However, the lack of domestic waste management and improper disposal of industrial wastewater are some of the contributing factors to the river’s state today.
In the study by Sudarningsih et al. (2019), the geochemical analyses discovered that Citarum River contains heavy metals such as Fe, Cd, Co, Ni, Pb, Zn, As, Hg, and Mn. Moreover, an approximate of 20,000 tons of waste and 340,000 tons of wastewater, the majority from 2,000 textile factories, are disposed directly into the river (Dikanaya and Rakhmat, 2018). This alludes to fast fashion pollution which is the second-largest polluter in the world! We will address this in our upcoming posts! 😀
Here is a full-length documentary on heavily polluted Citarum River in Indonesia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEHOlmcJAEk
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEHOlmcJAEk
Till next time,
Shee Wen & Nicole  
References
Dikanaya Tarahita and Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat. (2018). The Diplomat: Indonesia’s Citarum: The World’s Most Polluted River. Retrieved September 01, 2020, from https://thediplomat.com/2018/04/indonesias-citarum-the-worlds-most-polluted-river/
Espinoza, R. (2014, October 01). Chemical Waste That Impact on Aquatic Life or Water Quality. Retrieved September 01, 2020, from https://blog.idrenvironmental.com/chemical-waste-that-impact-on-aquatic-life-or-water-quality
Negri, A. P., Uthicke, S., & Mueller, J. F. (2011). Chemical Pollution on Coral Reefs: Exposure and Ecological Effects. Ecological Impacts of Toxic Chemicals (Open Access), 187-211. DOI:10.2174/978160805121210187
Sudarningsih, S., Aliyah, H., Fajar, S. J., & Bijaksana, S. (2019). Magnetic characterization and heavy metals pollutions of sediments in Citarum River, Indonesia. Journal of Physics. Conference Series, 1204, 12082. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1204/1/012082
Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja. (2018). Military sent in to clean up Indonesia’s Citarum River. The Straits Times. Retrieved September 01, 2020, from https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/military-sent-in-to-clean-up-indonesias-citarum-river
Yarsan, E., & Yipel, M. (2013). The Important Terms of Marine Pollution “Biomarkers and Biomonitoring, Bioaccumulation, Bioconcentration, Biomagnification”. Journal of Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis, S1. DOI:10.4172/2155-9929.s1-003