The Worldwide 'Thirst' For Clean Drinking Water

JUST IN TIME...!

""We use purified drinking water to flush our toilets and water our lawns. That doesn't make any sense," says Charles Fishman. "In an era of scarcity, we won't need to limit whether we have water to boil pasta or take a bath. But we will think differently about a whole portfolio of water. There will be different kinds of waters for different uses. And water itself will get smart."

Yesterday, NPR fresh air featured an interview with the author of 'The Big Thirst,' Charles Fishman. They talked about the future of a natural resource that, Fishman says, we can no longer take for granted.

"One of the big problems of water is that the success of the golden age of water has created an invisible system. We don't even take [water] for granted because taking it for granted would suggest we pay attention to it. That hidden system is corroding, and as it corrodes, it even corrodes our support for public water. We think, 'Why should I pay more for water? I'll just go buy bottled water.' But, in fact, we don't actually spend that much money supporting the system. In the U.S., we spend $21 billion a year buying bottled water, and we spend $29 billion a year maintaining the entire water system — pipes, treatment plants, pumps. We spend almost as much on crushable plastic bottles of water as we do maintaining the water system."

Stop taking water for granted!

Listen to the interview: NPR fresh air

More about the Book: The Big Thirst

Saving Water 101

Start today!

US Water Consumption

Do you know how you use water? 

•400 billion gallons of water are used in the US per day

•American residents use about 100 gallons of water per day

•95% of the water that enters a household ends up down the drain

•US water usage has increased 127% since 1950

 

Compare to how other countries... 

•Residential Europeans use approximately 50 gallons per day

•Sub Saharan Africans use about 2-5 gallons per day

•More than 1 billion people live on the amount of water we use to brush our teeth

World Water Day!

Birthday Campaign

Is your Birthday coming up? You might consider celebrate it with saving lives!

The birthday campaign started 4 years ago when Scott Harrison (founder of charity water) celebrated his birthday and asked his friends to donate money instead of giving him gifts. The year after he asked other September birthdays to join as well. In 4 years, the Birthday Campaign has raised over 1 million dollars for 16 countries. These donations go directly to build sustainable water solutions in the field. 

Celebrities that have donated their Birthday’s:

Will & Jada Smith 

Jessica Biel

Justin Beiber

Adam Lambert

GET INVOLVED:  http://www.charitywater.org/september/

How to help

GET INVOLVED!

Numbers = Lives

Solar Water Disinfection

•A low-cost method of purifying water that can often be implemented with locally available materials.

•Low impact on the environment substitutes the use of firewood.

•Also known as SODIS uses only sunlight and plastic PET bottles.

•This is recommended by the World Health Organization.

•Free and effective method for decentralized water treatment, usually applied at the household level. This will be ideal for families in underdeveloped countries.

•Educational pamphlets on the method are available in many languages, each equivalent to the English language version.

 

Processes for Drinking Water

Imagine drinking this...!

All these processes are for your safe drinking water: 

•Pre-chlorination- for algae control and arresting any biological growth

•Aeration- along with pre-chlorination for removal of dissolved iron and manganese

•Sedimentation- for solids separation, that is, removal of suspended solids trapped in the floc

•Filtration- removing particles from water

•Desalination- Process of removing salt from the water

•Disinfection- for killing bacteria.

 

What is Safe Drinking Water?

Standards for Safe Drinking Water

•Fluoride: For drinking purposes, water should be tested for fluoride ion concentration. Its deficiency in drinking water is harmful to humans and causes health issues such as tooth decay etc.

•Lead: Drinking water gets contaminated with lead when lead pipes are used for transportation of water. Lead can damage kidney, liver, reproductive system etc.

•Sulphate: Excessive sulphate (>500ppm) in drinking water causes laxative effect, otherwise at moderate levels it is harmless.

•Nitrate: The maximum limit of nitrate in drinking water is 50 ppm. Excess nitrate in drinking water can cause disease such as “blue baby” syndrome.

You Should Know...

•80 percent of diseases in the developing world are caused by contaminated water.

•The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

•The water we drink today is the same water the dinosaurs drank—there is no new water.

•If we did nothing other than provide access to clean water, without any other medical intervention, we could save 2 million lives a year.

The Ugly Truth

Population without Safe Water

- 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water, roughly one-sixth of the world's population.

- 50 percent of people on earth lack adequate sanitation. Another way to look at it: Nearly half of the world's population fails to receive the level of water services available 2,000 years ago to the citizens of ancient Rome.

- It is estimated that 5.3 billion people, two-thirds of the world’s population, will suffer from water shortages by 2025.

Africa

- The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is six kilometers.

- More than 40 million hours are wasted each year in Africa alone from women and children gathering water.

- The average American uses 100 to 175 gallons of water per day. The average African family uses 5 gallons per day.

- The average person in the developing world uses 2.64 gallons of water a day. The average person in the United Kingdom uses 35.66 gallons of water per day. The average person in the United States uses between 100 and 175 gallons every day at home.

Death Rates
- 2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

- 6,000 children die every day from disease associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene - equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day.

- The World Health Organization estimates that a combination of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene now kills 200 people an hour.

Worldwide Water Consumption

Think about this:

How much water do you typically drink on a daily basis?

How often do you leave the faucet running without using it? For Example: Do you leave the faucet running when you brush your teeth?

How often do you dump the remaining water in a water bottle or cup you were drinking out of?

•Residential Europeans use approximately 50 gallons per day

•Sub Saharan Africans use about 2-5 gallons per day

•More than 1 billion people live on the amount of water we use to brush our teeth

 

Did you know?

Top 10 water-rich nations

1.Finland 

2.Canada 

3.Iceland 

4.Norway 

5.Guyana 

6.Suriname 

7.Austria 

8.Ireland 

9.Sweden   

10.Switzerland.

Lowest 10 on the Water Poverty Index  -- 

Haiti, Niger, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Djibouti, Chad, Benin, Rwanda, and Burundi.

The United States, at # 32. “The U.S. is at a relatively low position because of wasteful or inefficient water use practices in domestic, industry and agriculture. This is illustrated by the fact that per capita water consumption is the highest in the world.”

HOW CAN WE SAVE WATER?

SOURCE: Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) 2003

Jennifer Connelly for charity: water

Imagine if New York City's taps went dry. What would we do? Jennifer Connelly walks to Central Park to get dirty water for her family as millions of mothers in Africa do every day.

Want to act? Only $20 can give one person clean and safe drinking water for 20 years. charity: water helps build wells in Africa and provides clean, safe drinking water.
Go to charity: water

The Liquid Planet

FIT’s 5th Annual Sustainable Business and Design Conference
The Liquid Planet

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The John Reeves Great Hall
Lower Level Seminar Rooms
8:15 am - 5:30 pm

Register now for The Liquid Planet. The 5th Annual Sustainable Business and Design Conference will feature speakers addressing a variety of issues pertaining to the sustainable use of aquatic systems and resources, from local rivers and bays to oceans, from pollution to sustainable fisheries.
A panel of keynote speakers representing organizations from the tri-state area (Kevin McAllister - Peconic Baykeeper, Adrienne Esposito - Citizen's Campaign for the Environment, and Jeff Rumpf - Hudson River Sloop Clearwater)  will discuss regional water issues and their far-reaching consequences.
Other speakers will include Mark Dorfman, green chemist and water expert from the Biomimicry Guild and Joshua Onysko from Pangea Organics. Additionally there will be afternoon breakout sessions, student exhibits, and more. See the schedule for a complete listing of the day's activities.
Each year, the Sustainable Business and Design Conference aims to inform, involve and inspire the entire FIT community to incorporate sustainability into all aspects of what we do.