Blog Action Day - What's Your Water Footprint?

One thing I've discussed multiple times on this blog, and is important to all of my colleagues at Adessi, is the issue of water. Whether it be bottled water or saving energy through boiling more water at once, we are definitely thinking about how we deal with our need for water and our need to cut our carbon footprint by 10%.

But did anyone tell us about a product's 'Water Footprint'? No.

Maybe I'm just naive, but surely I can't be the only person who didn't know that it takes 39,090 gallons of water to make a car? Just one car. Plus, to make each tyre alone uses 518 gallons of water. Even my own 'pet peeve' of bottled water is a prolific water footrpint criminal, using 1.85 gallons of water to manufacture the plastic for the bottle.

This water footprint doesn't just apply to products like these, it also applies to every day foods such as bread (one slice is 40 litres), milk (one glass is 200 litres) and the worst offender, the hamburger used 2400 litres of water!

Even ignoring Adessi's 10:10 campaign, there are so many people in the world without access to clean and safe water, but we are using gallons upon gallons for technology, fashion and food. There are so many charities out there doing an amazing job of raising awareness of the need for clean water especially in the Third World, but we also need to be told the facts about how much water we are using every day, minute, and even second, to fund our lifestyles. Could there be other ways of making products so we use less water? I'm no scientist, but I hope we see advances in technology in the near future so that less of our water supply is used in this way.

Laura