Two Types of Human Waste That Threaten Our Future
A picturesque coastline, home to a hard-fought triathlon competition. But beneath the surface lies a less enchanting story that’s not about competition and fun in the sun. At the World Triathlon Championship Series in Sunderland, England, last July, 57 participants fell victim to a wave of sickness and diarrhea post-race due to sewage discharges. Unveiling the uncomfortable truth behind the spectacle, this incident is a poignant reminder of the nauseating, outrageous narrative of waste unfolding. And one of the two we are deliberately choosing to ignore.
My hometown here in Patagonia has 200,000 inhabitants. We produce 24 tons of feces and 318,542 liters of urine — daily. Standard swimming pools have an average size of 25 meters in length, 10 meters in width, and 2 meters in depth. If you deposit all that human waste in it, you’ll be able to fill it. It’s up to you if you’ll take that pathogenic swim, though.
All this waste goes into the sewers — a network of pipes and pumping stations that take it to treatment plants. It gets treated with chemicals and filters until they’re clean enough to be released into the… lake. Where we bathe and drink and, well, promote it as the trademark signature of the lake district to attract tourists, our main income source. We are literally shitting on our source of income.
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