About how many people die each year from drinking polluted water?

Question

I'm writing a school report on water pollution and I think this would be something good to put in it. But it's really sad :(

Answer 1

I don't know if there are statistics on this in the U.S.   Perhaps it is not tracked, or the deaths are attributed to something else, because the assumption is that this does not happen in the U.S.  

Contact you local Congressman's office to see if they can tell you if any government agency has information on this.

Answer 2

The question has to ask a second question first.

If we have people so poor that they can not clean up polluted water to drink, how many of them might die from starvation and exposure if not from polluted water? Would their society be able to feed all of them if they were surviving?

I am not suggesting that this is a reason to just let them die. But if we are tagging polluted water, are we really tagging severe poverty that allows polluted water to continue to attack?

People are making a choice to live without a safer water system because it would cost them $5. per year, like a 2 days wage. That decision is then translating into sickness that prevents work for both parents for a month of the year, and keeps kids out of school or into graves for even more time.

So, why that decision? often it appears to be that the people do not own the land their huts are on, so they have no security for the money spent to provide them clean water.

The parts of the society that we might hope to solve the problems have less real income than our welfare recipients. So the money comes from?

Answer 3

There are no official figures

I asked the local hospital and nine types of parasites with the children are related to contaminated water as well as eye ,skin and stomach complaints .

In Mexico is a river that has high arsenic content which is killing a lot of people at the moment



Some countries are worse than others

In Areas of little potable water or floodings ,people are forced to drink contaminated water because they have no alternative

This is happening in Asia ,AFRICA AND MEXICO AND I AM SURE IN OTHER PLACES AS WELL.

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Answer 4

it is hard to say...

taking account about all the microorganisms and chemical... direct and indirect effects...

i think nobody could say an approximate number...