Essential services are crucial to the preservation of nature
Water pollution—primarily due to a lack ofbasic sanitation—along with the spread of wildfires and deforestation, are among the mainenvironmental problemsfacing Brazil. According to an unpublished study bythe Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics(IBGE), more than 2,000 Brazilian municipalities, home to 108 million people (62% of the population), are experiencing environmental changes that directly harm the lives of their residents.Open sewageis the biggest culprit in environmental degradation, followed bydeforestation and wildfires.
When it comes toenvironmental protection, the situation in Brazil is far from ideal. This year alone, INPE (National Institute for Space Research) satellites detected 89,604 hotspots from fires in the Amazon and Pantanal, compared to 89,176 recorded in 2019, which compromises the entire biome of these regions and impactsagricultural activitiesand the climate.
Another area of concern is basic sanitation, which refers to essential services guaranteed by law that should play a role inpreserving the environmentand improving the quality of life for the population, but which do not yet provide comprehensive coverage for all Brazilians. Currently, according to the National Sanitation Information System (SNIS – 2018), the percentage of the population with access tothe water supply and sewage collection networksin Brazil is 83.6% and 53.15%, respectively. The volume of treated sewage is close to 46%, and water losses reach 38.5%.
Environmental Damage
The consequences of the lack of these services are irreparable. Drinkingcontaminated water, for example, can cause gastrointestinal diseases and lead to death, and children are often the most affected. According to the Trata Brasil Institute, approximately 4.8 million children under the age of 14 are at risk of disease because they live in homes without basic sanitation infrastructure. Another consequence of the lack of basic services is theimpact on the environment. Dumping untreated sewage can pollute the soil, groundwater, and water reserves, leading to the death of animals and reducing the amount of available drinking water. The damage can extend to agriculture, commerce, industry, tourism, and other sectors of the economy.
According to Mateus Banaco, general director ofAtibaia Saneamento—the company responsible for sewage collection and treatment in the municipality, which operates under a public-private partnership with SAAE—“for all these reasons, basic sanitation is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today. At stake are the planet’s most valuable assets: people’s health, environmental conservation, and the functioning of the global economy. So, here in Atibaia, we have been working hard to change this reality and make sewage services universally available by 2025, thereby improving public health and helping to preserve the watersheds and water sources throughout the region,” said the director.
Source: Basic Sanitation Portal.
