Welcome back to Quit Playing Games (With Our Earth)! Earlier, we have discovered how air pollution is generated at the Olympic Games, resulting in profound health and socioeconomic impacts that play out across different geographical scales. In the next few posts, however, we will be exploring a different type of pollution — one that is arguably more visible, but equally far-reaching in effect.
That is none other than water pollution, which has emerged as a rising concern for Olympic water sports events in recent years. As defined by Owa (2013), water pollution arises when pollutant amounts are so large that the water is no longer suitable for specific uses, such as drinking and bathing. This has precisely been the case at several Olympic Games, with the most notorious example being the 2016 Rio Olympic Games where waters were found to contain viruses 1.7 million times more hazardous than that in America.
The issue of water pollution first came into the spotlight during the 2016 Olympic Games, when dangerous pollutant levels were detected in Rio’s waters (New York Times, 2015).
So, what leads to water pollution at the Olympic Games? While determining its exact cause is challenging as water pollution can be nonpoint source with “many possible points of origin” (Hill, 2012, p. 239), improper waste disposal remains a key contributor. This is especially so for domestic and industrial waste (Owa, 2013), which often go mismanaged as waste treatment infrastructure are unable to keep pace with rapid urban population growth and industrial expansion (Trendafilova, Graham and Bemiller, 2017). In Rio, for example, population growth has spiked alongside the number of slums or favelas without access to sewage systems, resulting in nearly half of Rio’s waste being dumped into the sea untreated (Vidal, 2016). Similarly, the lack of separate drainage systems for rainfall and sewage in Tokyo has led to the flushing of untreated sewage into Tokyo Bay during rainy seasons, so as to avoid overwhelming the central treatment system (Yokoyama, 2021).
The excessive presence of pollutants in Olympic swimming pools has led to an alarming phenomenon: these pools have turned a murky shade of green (Forbes, 2016)
Needless to say, such long-term dumping of waste into central water bodies has given rise to operational problems for host cities. Not only is water in Olympic pools and sailing venues murky as it is obtained from these water bodies, it also contains excessive viral loads that make it unsafe for athletes to compete. More significantly, the presence of these health hazards has led numerous athletes to pull out of events, concomitantly pushing host cities to undertake cleaning measures to assuage athletes’ fears while maintaining their image. On that note, the next post will investigate how unregulated anthropogenic activity and waste disposal led to disastrous water pollution at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, so stay tuned!
References
Forbes. (2016). Why Are Rio’s Olympic Pools Green And Smelly? Ryan Lochte’s Hair Holds The Answer [Online image]. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2016/08/15/chemistry-its-why-the-rio2016-pool-water-is-green/?sh=39506b082d6c
Hill, M. K. (2012). Water Pollution. In M. K. Hill (Ed.), Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp. 236-285). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511840654
New York Times. (2015). Filthy Rio de Janeiro Water a Threat at 2016 Olympics [Online image]. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/sports/olympics/filthy-rio-de-janeiro-water-a-threat-at-2016-olympics.html
Owa, F. D. (2013). Water pollution: sources, effects, control and management. Mediterranean journal of social sciences, 4(8), 65-68. https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n8p65
Trendafilova, S., Graham, J., & Bemiller, J. (2017). Sustainability and the olympics: the case of the 2016 Rio summer games. Journal of Sustainability Education, 16(3), 1-22. http://www.susted.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Trendafilova-Graham-Bemiller-JSE-Fall-2017-General-PDF.pdf
Vidal, J. (2016, August 3). Why is Rio de Janeiro finding it so hard to clear up its waste? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/aug/03/why-is-rio-de-janeiro-finding-it-so-hard-to-clear-up-its-waste-olympic-games
Yokoyama, E. (2021, July 14). Just Days Before Olympics, Tokyo’s Outdoor Swimming Venue Stinks. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-13/two-weeks-before-tokyo-olympic-swimming-event-the-water-stinks