Rivers in Romania are highly polluted, and the main sources identified in areas where water quality problems were found were discharges from septic tanks, sewage effluent or manure from farms or livestock. People also throw away car seats and car tires, but the situation with microplastics is also very serious. InfoClima.ro he writes a lot about river pollution and what the solutions will be.

In Romania, the lack of domestic water collection and treatment infrastructure leads to water pollution by domestic water or sewage.

Construction sites or structures near rivers are sources of pollution with residues such as cement, lime or other materials that can affect the PH of the water. In addition, ballast yards or places where gravel is extracted from riverbeds pollute the ecosystem with oil or diesel fuel from submerged cars or make the water very cloudy, resulting in a very high turbidity coefficient.

The entire country faced the problem of garbage and plastic found in riverbeds. From car seats, to car tires, strollers, anything that means household items or even personal belongings, unfortunately, we often choose to get rid of the trash by throwing it in the “pit”.

We can no longer talk about running water that passes through populated areas that is not dangerous for swimming or bathing. In addition, microplastics are another pollutant that is invisible and very difficult to measure. As a result of the mechanical impact of water or degradation under the influence of sunlight, plastic breaks down into very small pieces of about microns in size, namely: microplastics. They get into the water, air, and get into the digestive system of animals, so we tend to absorb/assimilate them from any environment.

The main sources of pollution identified in areas where water quality problems were identified were discharges from septic tanks, sewage effluent or manure from farms or livestock farms.

According to a study carried out by the University of Vienna together with the association MaiMultVerde, approximately 4.2 tons of waste is transported by the Danube every day, i.e. ~1533 tons per year. In addition, watercourses or lakes of any type up to and along the Danube accumulate a huge amount of plastic. A significant amount of their waste is discharged in rivers that cross Romania and flow into the Danube, or rivers that in turn flow into the Danube (Mureş-Tisa).

Of course, heavy rains and floods lead to the collection of garbage from all the gorges and ravines, dead ends and places where everything that was out of use and unusable was stored. All of them fall either into water bodies (from mountainous areas) or into the Danube, which, in turn, transports them to the Black Sea.

A number of researchers from UBB carried out microscopic measurements using a special technique (Raman spectroscopy) of water from 2 mountain springs in the Apuseni mountains (Tsarina and Josani) to check its quality.

The presence of microplastics in spring water was confirmed, and the quantification, expressed as the number of fragments or fibers per liter, was 0.034 in Josan and 0.06 in Țarina spring. Spectral results showed that most of the microplastics found were composed of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), followed by polypropylene.

Read the full article at Infoclima.ro