A reflection on the amount of water wasted every year in the world
Looking forward to the new year, Ila Staff would like start with good resolutions and an invitation to reflect on our planet and our vital resources.
Taking the opportunity of our forthcoming participation to Bahrain International Garden Show 2020 we would like to reflect on the subject of water stress and wastages, a topic that has gathered global attention in the last few years.
According to recent studies, on our planet more than 10 billion tons of fresh water is used every day. Not only to drink, of course, but also for agriculture, farming, industry not to mention plain and blatant wastages. Needless to say that water is a crucial aspect of every human action and industry and to help conceptualize how pervasive and essential is the use of water Prof. Tony Allan (University of London, King’s College) created the label of Virtual Water to indicate the hidden flow of water that each production implies.
For example, a cow needs to be farmed and grown for at least three years before is sufficiently grown to be slaughtered. During this short life water is used to feed (to grow fodder) and drink the cow, during the production of meat and for all cleaning operations necessary. As a result, eating 1 Kg of beef entails a consumption of at least 15,400 litres of Water! 1 Kg of chocolate means 24,000 litres of water used. To these alarming stats we also need to consider the clear wastages of our everyday lives. EPA survey informs us that every year 35.500 liters of water are annually wasted for leaks in water faucets that are not properly fixed.
As we know, simple habits can be easily implemented in our lives to check this problem. But most important, maybe, in the social media post-truth era is to be fully aware of these information in order to reflect and spread the information. As is known, the journey of a thousand miles begin with one single drop of water saved!
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