Getty Images/Jon Holloway - The Stock Connection
READ MORE ABOUT:
Water. We drink it, bathe in it, cook with it and play in it. It covers 70% of our planet and we're born with about 78% of of it in us. It's pretty safe to say that water is an integral part of life and therefore one of the most important resources to conserve and keep clean.
With so many of life's activities based around water--from washing the dishes to swimming at the beach--it can be overwhelming trying to figure out where to start implementing eco-water practices.
That's where the How to Go Green: Water guide comes into play. The guide offers a plethora of bite-sized information, tips and tools to get any water baby (or adult for this matter!), on their way to helping restore our H2O reserves. Let us whet your appetite for greener water with these exclusive bonus tips:
- Ease up on the meat
To produce 1 kilogram of boneless beef, according to a definitive 2004 UNESCO study on the "water footprint of nations," it takes 6.5 kilograms of grain, 36 kilograms of roughage (coarse grains and pasture), and 155 litres of drinking water (Now Magazine). In The Food Revolution, John Robbins calculates that a vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat eating diet requires 4,000 gallons per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year. - Get involved
In the year 2000, the United Nations established that 2.64 billion people had inadequate access to sanitation. This value represented 44 percent of the global population, but in Africa and Asia approximately half of the population had no access whatsoever to sanitation. Just a Drop reports that: "Every 10 seconds a child dies because of dirty water. 4 million children under five die terrible deaths each year due to water-born diseases. 1.1 billion children have no clean water close to their homes. Many children share the water they use to drink, cook and bathe with their livestock." Matt Damon set up H2OAfrica after he "saw firsthand the effects of one of the largest public health issues of our time, the world water crisis which is at its worst in Africa." And the United Church of Canada has started a campaign to control the spread of bottled water. - Location, location, location
Many of us live in places where we cannot survive sustainably. You can't live in Arizona without air conditioning and water resources that millions are trying to share. Perhaps we should be making our choices about where we live by considering the ability of the land to actually support us without artificial means. Florida's reservoirs below and above ground are badly depleted and becoming briny with saltwater seepage. The water shortage is so bad in parts of the state, despite a recent tropical storm, that people have been hauled into court and fined for violating strict water rationing standards. Some major American cities in the Southwest, including El Paso, San Antonio and Albuquerque, could go dry in 10 to 20 years.
This is only a drop in a bucket. Find a sea full of eco-water steps over at How to Go Green: Water.
Difficulty level: Easy to moderate
Read the rest of the How to Go Green Guides on Planet Green
How to Go Green: Cars-
- {}
