Water pollution has become a common enough problem and a common enough topic that average Americans have become easily numb to its news. This is because we are often told the consequences of surface water pollution, the dangers of it, and the harmful effects it has on the environment rather than being told the causes of water pollution.

Fracking is certainly one cause of the pollution of groundwater and surface water, but it isn?t only big businesses that are causing harm to the environment.

Water Pollution and The Average American

The average American citizen can cause just as much damage to local water sources as big businesses. Lawn care is one of the leading causes of local surface water pollution. Americans often over-treat their lawns and yards with pesticides and fungicides (using up to 2.2 billion pounds of them every year), which not only harmfully affect birds and worms but can run off lawns during rainfall and into groundwater.

A quarter of rainfall in the United States becomes groundwater, which is then transferred into streams and lakes, which means that not only are more than 73 kinds of pesticides ending up in lakes, but they?re ending up in our drinking water.

While water filtration is a necessary process of making water drinkable that has been around for thousands of years, the amount of toxic chemicals in our drinking water has never been this high and it?s because of the man-made chemicals that we purge into our local lakes and rivers. Water filtration is a privilege in the households that can afford it, but even those with water filtration systems in their kitchen sinks can be affected by surface water quality. Not all water filtration systems remove chemical contaminants; many only filter bacteria and pathogens.

How To Combat Against Water Pollution

The best way to combat the pollution of surface water in your everyday life is to be environmentally conscious in your lifestyle choices. Plant flowers in your garden and landscape modeling that are of a local species and use organic pesticides when you need to get rid of weeds. Also, consider watering your lawn less often — Americans are prone to over-watering their lawns to keep them lush and green when in actuality grass only needs about an inch of water a week. Watering your lawn too much can be a waste of fresh, drinking water, which is a limited source.