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Water – The Essence of Life

What you can do to help water conservation

By Chloe ◊ Jan 28, 2008 ◊ Published in Green ◊ 2 Comments

It’s so simple, two hydrogen atoms, one oxygen atom and voila, a water molecule, the essence of life. Water, without which life on earth would cease to exist. As humans, up to 78% of our makeup consists of water. Consider the following;

Globally, over 1.1 BILLION people are without access to improved water supplies. The majority of those without access are in Asia. (source)
Each year more than five million people die from water-related disease. (source)
Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water supply is readily accessible for direct human use. (source)
A person can live weeks without food, but only days without water and needs an average of 4 to 5 gallons of water per day to survive. (source)
The average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day. The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day. (source)
It takes 300 litres of water to produce 1 kilogram of paper, 215,000 litres to produce 1 metric ton of steel, 15,000 tons of water to produce a ton of beef, and 1,000 tons of water for a ton of grain. (source)

Most of us in North America are indeed fortunate to have ready access to clean drinking water. We take it for granted, and expect that when we turn on the tap, water, clean and drinkable, will flow, and all for pennies per day. We give no thought to the process undertaken by our municipality to deliver this product to our homes. Nor do we contemplate the source of our drinking water, and how, all too often, we abuse it.

Despite its undeniable importance and fundamental necessity, surface water, such as lakes and rivers, is repeatedly regarded as a dumping ground, a waste disposal site for that which we wish to cast off and discard. Without regard for consequence and due in large part to fiscal restraint, many areas of the world discharge untreated, raw sewage into the same bodies of water from which they take their drinking water. Industry pollutes it with a myriad of chemicals whose names we can’t spell, let alone pronounce. We as individuals pour toxic household substances directly into storm sewers, bypassing any chance at wastewater treatment.

We are incredibly extravagant and careless in our consumption of water. We put drinking water to uses which those who do not have access to drinking water would find unconscionable. Twenty minute showers each and every day, washing our cars and our driveways during periods of prolonged drought, watering our lawns, leaving the tap running while we brush our teeth, washing one pair of jeans in a washer full of water, and my personal favourite, doing the dishes under a tap of running water.
And oh, how we complain when we get the bill! How we whine when the municipality spends a few hours performing maintenance and we are without water for several hours.
Think about this;

Over much of the earth, the demand for water exceeds the sustainable yield of aquifers and rivers. The gap between the continuously growing use of water and the sustainable supply is widening each year, making it more and more difficult to support rapid growth in food production.
Sooner or later, the sources of our drinking water will be severely restricted. The tap will run dry.

Some simple steps you can take to ensure the availability of water for the next generation (and perhaps your own):

Inside:

Don’t leave the tap running while you brush your teeth or shave.
Install a low flow, or water efficient, shower head.
There’s no reason to have a 20 minute shower. Wet, lather, rinse; five minutes is plenty.
When it’s time to replace your washer, or, if you can afford it now, purchase a high efficiency front loading washing machine.
Fix your leaky toilet...NOW!
Install a low flow toilet.
Run the dishwasher and the washing machine with full loads only.

Outside:

Use a broom instead of a hose when cleaning your driveway or patio.
If your municipality has watering restrictions, observe them. They’re there for a reason. If it doesn’t, get involved and make some changes.
Your car won’t die if it’s dirty. Wash it only when absolutely necessary.
If you must use a sprinkler, adjust it to water the lawn and the garden, not the sidewalk and the driveway. In periods of dry weather, one inch of water is sufficient. Any more is waste.

To those who make water conservation a daily exercise, it may seem an uphill battle. Please keep in mind that collectively we can make a difference. If society as a whole embraces the idea, and practices conservation methods, things will change.

Remember that only 25 years ago, drunk driving was, if not acceptable, tolerated. How society’s attitude has changed!

For more information, visit Environment Canada or the Environmental Protection Agency, and search “water conservation”.

In 1995, World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin predicted “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”
He may be proven right sooner than anyone expected.

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