Discover how municipal water filtration has evolved, how it was created and the problems that still face our society today...
Municipal water filtration systems have been around for centuries. Even people several centuries back realized the need for safe, clean public water and started demanding it from their leaders. This demand was based on an Enlightenment period concept that people had certain natural rights, such as the right to drink and bathe in clean water. Philosophers of the era spent hours pondering on this topic, and the general consensus was that the people were right in their expectations. As a result, different water purification methods were introduced. In 1804, the first city-wide water filtration system began operation in Scotland, and the idea spread from there. In the modern era, we have all come to expect municipal water filtration as one of our unalienable rights.
Municipal water filtration facilities spread in popularity due to increasing technologies and the greater awareness that drinking unhealthy water could result in epidemics and a public health crisis. Chlorine was first introduced into drinking water during a cholera epidemic and proved to be an invaluable purifying agent. About 98% of all drinking water treatment facilities now use chlorine to disinfect their water which translates into the fact that over 200 million Americans now receive chlorinated drinking water from their taps. Health statistics have shown over the years that water filtration and disinfecting techniques have led to a much healthier population in areas where it is practiced. Unfortunately, there are still areas on the globe without municipal water filtration systems where people still get ill and die from polluted water.
The system even in America, however, isn't perfect. Waterways continue to amass every kind of contaminant known to man. Even though environmental issues came into focus in the 1960s and '70s, and massive efforts were made to prevent factory waste products from being dumped into our water resources, and although water filtration technology has vastly improved, the water these plants are trying to clean continues to be dirtier and dirtier. Most likely this phenomenon is just the result of the world being more populated than it was at any other time in the past. The challenge now is to either get serious about controlling the amount of junk that continues to pour into our waterways or to invent still other methods of municipal water filtration that will control much more massive amounts of contaminants in the future.
