Samar Farrukh

WIT

by Samar Farrukh

 

On September 5, 2008, a beautiful girl named Anmol was born in a remote and a lush green village of Pakistan. Known as, Noonwala, this village is located in the Muzaffargarh district, Punjab. Most people here are farmers by profession. In their day to day lives, villagers use untreated drainage water for watering the crops and ground water for domestic use. Unfortunately, it is one of those villages which get adversely affected by floods. The flood not only destroys their years of manual labor but also causes the villagers to suffer from a severe scarcity of clean drinking water. Nevertheless, Noonwala comprises of a closely knit community of people and Anmol grew up in a very affable environment. Everyone loved her and she loved everyone. Being the only child of her parents, she was their source of joy and comfort. However, in 2010, devastating floods hit her village. In this unfortunate event, Anmol’s mother passed away. Life had stripped her off from one of her pillars and so she tightly held onto the other afraid to lose it. She became very close to her dad and he was her strength and support. Anmol’s father was a dedicated farmer and always kept her by his side. He taught her to how to love and take care of the plants and nature around her. Anmol loved plants and often thought about what nature was trying to teach her through them. She was fascinated by the process of reproduction in plants. A seed was sown, it produced its own covering which protected the fruit developing inside it until it was ready to be utilized. Marvelous! She thought of her dad as a peel of fruits and vegetables who protected her until she would become what she is truly destined for. Peels therefore were very special for her and she never threw them away. She dug up a trench and kept them safe there. For what purpose, she didn’t know but she just couldn’t swallow the idea of throwing something so valuable and something so close to her heart. She hated floods however, for they took away everything she loved and hated the consequences that ensued these floods even more for she did not know how these were to be dealt with. Growing up loving everything and everyone, she loathed her inability to do anything in times of despair and hardship.

On one unfortunate day, floods hit her community again. In the midst of all the chaos and suffering, her dad saved her but was unable to survive himself. Anmol was devastated beyond words. Wherever she looked, there was an endless ocean of suffering and hopelessness. Floods had torn down everything, leaving millions of shards as if broken hope had become visible. Their homes, their work of many years was washed away as if it were nothing. Months passed by, Anmol and her fellow villagers returned to face the calamity again. Houses were destroyed, crops were gone, the infrastructure was completely damaged and there was a scarcity of clean drinking water. Anmol missed her dad a lot and decided to visit the place where she had dug the trench containing all the peels she had stored in the memory of her loving dad. To her surprise, she observed that the water in the trench was far cleaner than the surrounding water. She was astounded by her discovery and shared this exciting news with her fellow villagers. Some daring individuals drank that water and realized the purification ability of the peels. It is then she understands her destiny and develops a water purification system which uses the magical abilities of the peels to purify the flood water. This is how Anmol saved her fellow villagers and became their pride. Having felt hopeless before, she realizes how only in darkness could she have seen the stars.

One of the most crucial problems affecting the world today is the scarcity of clean drinking water. Globally, 785 million people lack access to safe drinking water (World Vision Australia). The problem is further exacerbated by the problem of climate change as we have observed in Anmol’s story. Climate change is a harsh reality and as global temperatures rise, it is expressing itself through water with scientists foreseeing increased periods of drought and flooding, melting glaciers, changing rain and snowfall patterns (National Geographic). This gives rise to an increase in the uncertainty surrounding the availability of clean drinking water. The upsurge in incidences of flooding, in particular, poses huge problems (Patel,S., 2012). Flooding not only destroys water points and sanitation facilities but also contaminates water sources. Unfortunately, it is mostly the economically disadvantaged communities around the world who get adversely affected by floods and are thus deprived of the access to clean drinking water (Kawasaki, A. et al., 2020). On 8 December 2010, flood waters devastated the villages in the province of Punjab in Pakistan and affected the lives of more than 20 million people (Al-Dhayi.B., 2010). The goal, henceforth, is to develop a robust water purification method that has the ability to purify water at a low cost, using minimal energy and chemicals to reduce our negative impact on the environment we live in.

Pakistan is an agriculture-based economy which means it has a huge potential for a purification system based on the cleansing ability of fruit and vegetable peels. Each year millions and tons of peels go to waste. However, if utilized, these various fruits and vegetable peels have the remarkable ability to purify different contaminates such as toxic heavy metals, pesticides and various organic pollutants found in water sources. This is a relatively new area of research and through rigorous studies, new findings are coming forth. For example, in 2013, Mr Ramakrishna Mallampati, a PhD candidate at NUS, analyzed several low cost and readily available peels and observed that apple and tomato peels can efficiently filter out various pollutants present in water. These contaminants included organic chemicals, dyes and pesticides. Moreover, there are alarmingly high levels of arsenic and lead in Pakistan’s ground water which, in addition to being used by the villagers of Noonwala, is also used by many other villages across Pakistan (McGrath.M., 2017; Guo et al., 2015). Fortunately, with the due efforts of some brilliant scientists, it has been discovered that orange peel waste, banana and even potato peel can remove arsenic from contaminated drinking water (Tabassum, R. A et al., 2019; Haji, A. A., & Mohammed, N. M. S., 2019) and there is also a groundbreaking finding about the rapid adsorption of lead on cucumber peel (Basu, M. et al.,2017).

Yet, another fascinating research demonstrated how environmentally friendly carbon aerogels extracted from waste pomelo peels can be used for the removal of organic pollutants/oils (Chai, W. et al., 2015). The healing power of onions is widely known but few know about their purification ability. Researchers have also discovered the efficient removal of nitrate from aqueous solutions and field samples using onion peels. (Mondal, N. K. et al., 2019). This study is highly important in Pakistan’s context given the rigorous agriculture practiced throughout the country with the mass use of nitrate rich fertilizers. Moreover, corn is the third most important cereal crop with a production of 3.3 million tonnes in Pakistan (Saleem, Z. et al., 2014). It can also absorb metal toxicants and other water contaminants with a considerable efficiency as elaborated in a comprehensive review by Sharma, A. et al in 2019. Therefore, in light of the aforementioned research findings, it is imperative to utilize peels for remediation purposes in Pakistan. 

High biodegradability of fruit and vegetable peels results in nuisance in municipal landfills. As mentioned, many papers claiming the viable use of these biosorbents for water purification, treatment of agricultural and industrial wastewater and the reclamation of valuable metals have been published. These organic waste-based adsorbents, characterized by a decent uptake capacity and fast kinetics, are expected to be economically and ecologically viable (Patel,S., 2012). These studies provide a promising alternative to costly environmentally friendly water purification solutions. However, further investigations are required to optimize the absorbance and boost the efficiency to turn these findings into a practical reality. This is a novel idea and Pakistan can not only easily adapt but also greatly benefit from this given the extent to which agriculture is practiced here.

Water and climate change are inextricably linked and there is a dire need to provide sustainable water solutions. This is a time when we should join hands with Anmol to unleash the power of peels and not discard the source of her strength. As the saying goes,

 “There is no such thing as “away”, when we throw anything away, it must go somewhere”- Annie Leonard.

Just as Anmol became the pride of the villagers of Noonwala, on this World Water Day, lets become the pride of the people of Pakistan.

 

References

Al-Dhayi, B. (2010, December 9). Millions displaced by devastating floods in Pakistan brace for winter without a home. UNICEF. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/emergencies/pakistan_57168.html

Basu, M., Guha, A. K., & Ray, L. (2017). Adsorption of lead on cucumber peel. Journal of Cleaner Production, 151, 603-615.

Chai, W., Liu, X., Zou, J., Zhang, X., Li, B., & Yin, T. (2015). Pomelo peel modified with acetic anhydride and styrene as new sorbents for removal of oil pollution. Carbohydrate polymers, 132, 245-251.

Climate Change, Droughts and Floods. (n.d). National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/climage-change/

Haji, A. A., & Mohammed, N. M. S. (2019). Optimization of Arsenic Adsorption onto Activated Carbon of Potato Peel Using Response Surface Methodology. Science Journal of University of Zakho, 7(2), 37-44.

Kawasaki, A., Kawamura, G., & Zin, W. W. (2020). A local level relationship between floods and poverty: A case in Myanmar. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 42, 101348.

McGrath.M. (2017, August 23). 'Alarmingly high' levels of arsenic in Pakistan's ground water. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41002005.

Mondal, N. K., Ghosh, P., Sen, K., Mondal, A., & Debnath, P. (2019). Efficacy of onion peel towards removal of nitrate from aqueous solution and field samples. Environmental Nanotechnology, Monitoring & Management, 11, 100222.

Patel, S. (2012). Potential of fruit and vegetable wastes as novel biosorbents: summarizing the recent studies. Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology, 11(4), 365-380.

Saleem, Z., Iqbal, J., Khattak, S. G., Khan, M., Muhammad, N., Iqbal, Z., ... & Fayyaz, H. (2014). Effect of different insecticides against maize stem borer infestation at Barani Agricultural Research Station, Kohat, KPK, Pakistan during kharif 2012. International Journal of Life Sciences Research, 2(1), 23-26.

Tabassum, R. A., Shahid, M., Niazi, N. K., Dumat, C., Zhang, Y., Imran, M., ... & Khalid, S. (2019). Arsenic removal from aqueous solutions and groundwater using agricultural biowastes-derived biosorbents and biochar: a column-scale investigation. International journal of phytoremediation, 21(6), 509-518.

World Vision Australia. (2019). Global water crisis: Facts, FAQs, and how to help. Retrieved from https://www.worldvision.com.au/global-water-crisis-facts