Goal 6.3: To improve the quality of water

Goal 6.3: To improve the quality of water
2011. Natural watertight canal with a pig wandering along it, Carrefour, Puerto Príncipe (Haití). Foto: José Luis Armayor © José Luis Armayor

Goal 6.3: To improve the quality of water

The third goal of SDG 6 is to achieve by 2030 «[…] an improvement in the quality of water by reducing contamination, eliminating  discharge, and minimising the emission of chemical products and toxic materials, reducing untreated wastewater by 50%, and increasing recycling and reuse without risk, at a global level ». The photo was taken by the author from a Spanish Red Cross convoy on its way to Port-au-Prince and shows natural watertight canal in the town of Carrefour, district of Port-au-Prince.  This canal is a tributary of the main gully which crosses the town and goes on to the sea. The canal is completely flooded with urban waste and contaminated wastewater. A pig can be seen in the middle of the canal.

In villages in poor countries, which are very deficient when it comes to managing solid and liquid waste, organic waste is reused in a horrifying chain which begins with a poor Haitian eating the remains of food waste, followed by dogs, cats and stray pigs, then birds, rodents and insects which minimise organic waste. This crude reality hides a much more alarming one, because this food chain enables the transmission of infectious diseases.  During a visit to Port-au-Prince rubbish dump to solve a problem of filtration of excreta from the earthquake displacement camps, the author was able to confirm that there was no organic matter in the solid waste dump, due to the reasons mentioned above.