We take clean drinking water for granted in the UK. We even flush our toilets with it. Yet, providing clean water to everybody in the world would probably be the one single act to benefit the most people.

Clean drinking water needs protecting for millions of people. According to the UN, one-third of the world's population live in countries facing moderate to severe shortages of usable water by 2025. Four out of five common diseases in developing countries are caused by dirty water.

Major sources of freshwater pollution are industrial discharges, sewage, oil, fertilisers, and pesticides.

Oil and sewage were the two most commonly identified pollutants in the 25,300 water pollution incidents in England and Wales in 1993.

In 1992 UK industrial firms spent £677 million on equipment to control water pollution.

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