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EcoRío de La Plata

Environmental problematic: River Plate contamination.

The River Plate, located in south-west South America, originates from the junction between The Paraná and the Uruguay rivers. It flows between Argentina and Uruguay and into the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the most important rivers in America. It was born pure and clean but now it is used as a trash can. It was formed 2,4 million years ago. The River Plate, in its whole extension, suffers from contamination from the most varied origins, which affects the 15 million people living at its coasts. The river, that in previous centuries contained clear water, is now a deposit of residual water from the industrial and agricultural areas. The causes of its contamination originate at the urban and industrial effluents, which do not receive adequate treatment, in this case, they are the Medrano and Luján Reconquista creeks, and the Riachuelo. There, you can see disturbances in the natural environment, caused by population growth, an increase in urbanization and of agricultural, ranching and industrial activities. This is reflected in the decrease of water quality, the habitats disturbance and the decrease of biodiversity, in the basin as well as in the coast.

Industrial Effluents Treating Plant

PREVIOUS STEPS
  • Step 1: Get authorization to check if factories and industries have a non-treated water disposal which falls into the streams that flow into the River Plate.
  • Step 2: After verifying whether industries have water disposals that fall into the streams that flow into the River Plate, a law is established which compels factories and industries to install this industrial purification treatment. If the law is not complied, fines will have to be paid, or industries might even be closed down.  
    1. Step 3: Installation of the treatment in each of the contaminating industries.

      Purification Plant

      1   Pre-Treatment:  The polluted water flows through metallic nets that retain the solid elements, which are recolected and are then carried to waste treatment plants, the water continues through the process.

      • Decanting basin: The liquids go to decanting basins, where solid elements are isolated and decant due to gravity, although the process is accelerated by using aluminium sulfate.
      • Purification: Then, the liquid goes to water purifiers, according to which chemical the each factory wants to eliminate. The purifiers reduce their parts per million (ppm), as they can not eliminate the chemical completely. 
      • River Plate: Finally, the polluting liquids turn into natural water and are thrown back into the River Plate.

  • Objectives

    Reducing the amount of solid and chemical waste present in the River Plate. If possible, eliminating them completely, at long term. Moreover, there is another very important objective, which is making factories and industries to do something and putting this project into practice, as it would be impossible to accomplish it without them.

    The main pollution sources are:

    •      Ammonium, nitrite, other metals.
    •      Sewage.

    They come from:

    •      Alcoholic drinks’ factories (3%)
    •      Pharmaceutical, chemical, and petrochemical industries (30%)
    •      Desechos cloacales y otras industrias (67%)

    Contaminating affluents:

    •      Riachuelo, Arroyo Sarandí, Santo Domingo, Jimenez, Conchitas, Baldovinos, Pereyra.

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A habitable Riachuelo

Water pollution in the Riachuelo caused by industrial waste
While investigating the subject of water pollution by industrial waste we identified that nowadays, the main problem in Argentina is the pollution of the Riachuelo. This tributary is located in the city of Buenos Aires and it ends in the Rio de la Plata. This problem is very important specially because of the direct consequences it has on the 5 million people that live in its surroundings. Heavy metals, such as lead, chrome, mercury and cadmium, progressively accumulate in the body and cause intoxication. The continuous presence of solid waste causes the loss of biodiversity and the contamination of underground water sources.

Estado del arte

Solution Proposal
The main objective of our project is to remove the solid waste and heavy metals from the river to improve the quality of life for the people who live in its surroundings and to stop the loss of biodiversity. To accomplish this, we designed a plan that consists of two stages. The first stage would be to install a system called hidohigienizador that is carried by two hydrofoils to collect the solid waste that is on the surface of the river. The second stage would be the installation of aquatic plants capable of absorbing the heavy metals present in the river.
The hidrohigienizador consists of a float that sits on the surface of the river and a conical skirt three meters deep. The float gives floatability to the system and it avoids the solid waste from flowing above it, while the conical skirt avoids the waste from flowing under it. Additionally, the skirt allows the fish to swim under the system.

Hidrohigienizador
Hidrohigienizador

The hidrohigienizador is carried by two hydrofoils that are at the extremes. We chose to use hydrofoils for various reasons. To begin with, it´s flat background design is ideal to avoid the embarkation from being stuck or damaged by the solid waste. Moreover, the driver would be located on an elevated seat, in a covered cabin to take care of their health and have better visibility of objects that could damage the system. Lastly, the installation of solar panels to propel the aviation propeller would avoid the use of petrol and cause less damage to the environment as it is a renewable energy.

Lechuga de agua

For the second stage of our project we would be using phytoremediation, a technology based on the capacity of some plants to tolerate, absorb, accumulate and degrade organic or inorganic contaminating compounds. The type of phytoremediation we are interested in is phytoextraction. It is based on the fact that, through physiologic processes, plants can act as suction bombs and extract the metals from the water through their roots and accumulate them on their tissues. Once they have accumulated the metals, the plants are harvested and transported to a controlled disposal or incinerated. The plants we chose for our project are jacinto de agua and lechuga de agua.

Conclusion

Our project will remove the solid industrial waste and toxic waste from the Riachuelo, improving the quality of life for the people who live in its surroundings. In addition, it will improve the environment, stopping the loss of biodiversity.

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Wave of garbage

It is a known fact that the environment is being permanently affected by our presence and all the activities that we do, but while researching on this topic, there was a news that particularly impressed us: the death of marine fauna. After an extensive study, we discover that the principal cause of this is the marine waste, or in other words, any type of garbage that we generate and it ends up infecting to the ocean.

Our study also revealed that nowadays physical solutions already exist, therefore we decided to attack with campaigns to raise awareness. We strongly believe that it is essential to clean the oceans and provide a healthier environment for all the animals, but it is useless to clean them if they are going to end up being dirty again. Hereby, we decide to focus on the kids of our community and to show them the importance of the oceans, to prevent these form filling with plastic and unwanted chemicals again. We aimed at the younger generation due to the fact that they are our future and the world that we are shaping and cleaning today, is for them.
For our campaign we design a panel to shock every student of the secondary school who run up to it. In it, we created a wave out of our daily waste, which refers to the name of our campaign “Wave of garbage”, and place posters with important facts highlighting the quantity of garbage that is present in the ocean nowadays. As for the kids of primary school, we prepared a short talk in which we show them a glass with water and candy wrappers, forcing them to put themselves in the shoes of all the animals that live among waste every day. For this, we asked them if they would like to drink this water, which kept them amazed.
To finish, we wanted our campaign, in spite of having focused it in our own community, to expand and reach as many heads as possible. Therefore, we created a website, where we have placed all the information that we had gathered and invite any visitor to collaborate not only spreading our discoveries, but also helping other campaigns that nowadays are cleaning oceans and beaches.
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize the importance that the water masses have in our lives, since not only they represent a source of food or recreation, but they are part of the environment just like us. A phrase that marked our campaign was “If the oceans die, we die” (Captain Paul Watson) and in spite of its simplicity, we think that there is no better phrase that summarizes our cause. Let’s not leave them to die, because we will be killing ourselves. Let’s take care of them just as how we would like to be treated.