Due to unforeseen circumstances, I missed posting for World Water Day.
In 1992, the United Nations declared March 22nd as World Water Day to draw international attention to the critical lack of clean, safe drinking water worldwide. Each year highlights a different aspect of water, with this year’s theme being Transboundary Waters.
The United Nations has named clean water access as one of its Millenium Development Goals because it contributes to increased poverty, high child mortality rates, lower education levels, and more.
FACTS
- Less than 3% of Earth’s water supply is fresh water
- The past century has seen the world’s population triple while water consumption has increased sevenfold.
- 1/7th of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water.
- Nearly one billion people do not have access to sufficient amounts of safe water.
- Contaminated water causes the death of more than 5,000 people each day.
- Every year, more than 2 million people die from causes related to drinking contaminated water.
- Waterborne illness is the second largest killer in children under 5
- Every eight seconds, a child dies from a disease caused by drinking contaminated water.
- A person needs about 50 litres of safe water per day to meet their basic needs.
- It takes 10 litres of water to make a sheet of paper.
- A kilogram of meat requires 5 to 20 times more water than is used to produce a kilogram of cereal.
- Bottled water can cost up to 10,000 times more than tap water.
- By 2013, 36 U.S. states anticipate water shortages
What can I do?
Find a restaurant that is participating with the Tap Project during World Water Week (March 22-28). These restaurants will ask patrons to donate $1 for their tap water, a donation that provides a child with clean drinking water for 40 days through UNICEF.
Follow @chlorine or @worldH20 on twitter and join the group on Facebook. For every member that joins the group, the American Chemistry Council will contribute five chlorine tablets designed to disinfect 100 liters of water.
For every person who visits SaveWaterAmerica.com and takes the 3 question quiz, Kohler will donate $1 in water-saving products to Habitat for Humanity. After going through the quiz, I found out that New York City’s per capita water usage rate is one of the highest in the country, and that some cities offer a toilet retrofit rebate program so you can upgrade one toilet in your home to a newer, more eco-friendly model.
If you have to buy bottled water, then I suggest you buy a brand like Ethos, whose mission is to help children around the world get clean water and raise awareness of the world water crisis. A portion of profits goes towards their goal of making $10 million in grant commitments toward humanitarian water programs by 2010. So far, Ethos has helped an estimated 420,000 people around the world and committed more than $6.2 million in grants.
“There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people – and the environment – suffer badly.” World Water Vision Report
OH, FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE! 