University celebrates World Water Day

HOUGHTON — Water: it’s essential to life and it’s worth protecting, even celebrating.

Michigan Tech has been taking part in the global observance of World Water Day for about 10 years. Spanning several days on campus, the celebration includes art displays, competitions and a panel discussion to name just a few.

Michigan Tech Assistant Professor of Economics Latika Gupta said, “This is a great way to create awareness about, not only the Great Lakes, but world issues about water, about climate change, about water scarcity, about water quality.”

The theme this year is Wastewater and how it is a renewable, recoverable source of potable water, resources and energy.

Dr. George Tchobanoglous said, “Historically, what we’ve done is we’ve always said we treat wastewater so that we can discharge it into the environment. But what if we said, ‘No, we should treat
wastewater so that we can produce an effluent that’s suitable for advanced processing’?”

Eighty percent of the water we use is wasted. You can take part in World Water Day by thinking of ways to keep from pouring water down the drain and finding other uses for it.