Freshwater Microplastics

Introduction The provision of water was one of the eight components of primary health care identified by the World Health Assembly in Alma Ata in 1978. The Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care expanded the concept of health care to include broader concepts of affordability, accessibility, self-reliance, inter-sectoral collaboration, community participation, sustainability and social justice. The importance of water supply continues to be emphasised as critical to reducing poverty and improving the health and well-being of the World's children and adults. The global community has committed itself to halving the proportion of the world's population who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water by 2015. Although great strides have been made in meeting this challenge in terms of provision of services, the safety of many water supplies remains unknown and uncertain. The recent Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report provided statistics regarding access to technologies that were either 'improved' or 'unimproved'. This was done on the assumption that some technologies were likely to be better for health, although it was recognised that would not always be the case. However, there was no information provided on water quality within the assessment. The inclusion of information regarding water quality in future assessments of the degree of access to water supplies is desirable. This handbook is designed to help in the implementation of rapid assessments of water quality to improve the knowledge and understanding of the level of safety of water supplies. There is significant value in reporting of independently verifiable water quality data to support national Governments and the international community in measuring progress in achieving the international development targets. Such data provides useful information regarding current conditions, deriving the likely public health burden relate to inadequate water supply and to gain an understanding of the extent of major water quality problems in developing countries. These data would, therefore, provide an indication of future investment priorities and needs on a country, regional and global basis.

Introduction This section provides a step by step discussion regarding the development of a Quality Control Handbook for a water or wastewater treatment plant. A workshop format has been chosen for the development of the handbook in order to channel the multiple knowledge inputs needed for it. For a proper. The workshop format targets participants coming from water or wastewater treatment facilities. These participants are expected to be knowledgeable of the operational activities of the plant and able to share their actual experiences. The successful implementation of this handbook depends on the creation of a setting in which the employees themselves act as both teachers and students. Active participation is a key success factor, and practical demonstrations are necessary to supplement the theoretical aspects. The workshop format can be easily replicated and as such, helps facilitate the development of operating manuals in other water treatment facilities or water companies. Once completed, these manuals may be used to define the required skills of the operating personnel and may also be used for actual on-the-job training. The handbook is to be finalized after successful completion of four group sessions.

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