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Household waste – a breeding ground for disease
Household waste sites are a source not only of “aesthetic” pollution in our environment, more importantly they are a breeding ground for a wide range of diseases such as malaria, food poisoning, typhoid, cholera, etc. Household waste is made up of all the rubbish and refuse we produce and get rid of every day because it has become unmanageable or unwanted.
And the accumulation of household waste in a town, for whatever reason, can be damaging to health. It can lead to the proliferation of microbes, parasites and other vectors of disease. Furthermore, as waste decays it produces an unpleasant odour and irritant vapours that can cause allergic reactions or even pneumonia. Indeed, during the process of decay, household waste gives off toxic gases such as hydrogen sulphide, methane and carbon dioxide.
However, the principal risk associated with the accumulation of waste is the proliferation of microbes and parasites of all kinds, as well as the creatures that live on this residue, such as salmonella, flies, mosquitoes, rats and mice. All of which can cause a number of parasitical infections such as malaria, food poisoning, typhoid, cholera, and even plague…
And that’s not all. Recent studies have shown that rubbish tips may be implicated in the occurrence of genetic malformations among children born to parents living less than 3 km from a waste site. The WHO in fact reminds us that every year 3 million children in the world die as a result of living in an unhealthy environment.
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11 article(s)
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The art of the tooth brushing …
