25 Things You Might Not Know about Water
If you’re on Facebook, you and your friends may have posted notes with 25 facts about themselves. We wanted to share with you 25 things we think are really interesting about water. It’s on our Facebook page too. Please feel free to share it with your friends.
25 Things You Might Not Know about Water
1. The world is currently in a water crisis. One out of six people worldwide doesn’t have access to clean water. Every year, 2 million people die of diseases caused by a lack of clean water.
2. Regions throughout the world are experiencing water shortages, due to both droughts and overuse of water. Rivers all over the world, including the Colorado River, now dry up before reaching their ends.
3. Companies like Nestlé are taking communities water for bottling despite public opposition, in the US and abroad.
4. Bottled water plants dont provide good jobs.
5. Water advocacy does. Food & Water Watch is hiring (and it’s a great place to work!).
6. The international financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) have essentially forced many countries to sell their public water utilities to big water corporations.
7. Communities all over the world have organized, and in some cases shed blood, to regain control of their water resources.
8. Bottled water isnt safer than tap water. Last year, Environmental Working Group did a study that tested popular brands of bottled water for contamination. They found 38 different harmful chemicals, including painkillers, fertilizer and arsenic, in 10 brands of bottled water.
9. The average American’s indoor water use is about 69 gallons of water per day. Calculate your water footprint here.
10. According to the Washington Post in 2005, “Just one flush of a toilet in the West uses more water than most Africans have to perform an entire day’s washing, cleaning, cooking and drinking.”
11. Worldwide, big investors like T. Boone Pickens are buying up water rights like they have bought up oil. Some have predicted that the next wars will be over water.
12. You can carbonate your own water with a machine like this if you like it fizzy.
13. Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into your water. Lined aluminum or stainless steel bottles like our Take Back the Tap one are the safest alternative.
14. Industry is pushing technology that makes ocean water into drinking water as a solution to shortages. But really, it’s a bad idea.
15. Conservation can get us farther. Check out a whole bunch of conservation tips here.
16. In the US, people who get their water from a privately owned utility pay up to 80% more than those who get it from a public utility. Private sewer service can cost twice as much as public.
17. We may be able to conserve water by investing in renewable energy sources. According to Harper‚ magazine in December 2008, half of all freshwater drawn from U.S. sources each year is used to cool power plants.
18. In Bolivia, nearly one out of every ten children dies before the age of five. Most of those deaths are related to illnesses that come from a lack of clean drinking water. This statistic and others are discussed in the movie FLOW.
19. Every day, an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water leak out of pipes in the US.
20. In 1978, the feds paid for 78% of water infrastructure in the US. As of 2008, it was 3%. Many communities don’t have the money to make up the difference. You can meet with your legislator to tell them you support the creation of a dedicated source of funding for water infrastructure.
21. Up to 40% of bottled water is actually just municipal water that‚ been packaged.
22. There’s a growing movement of college campuses and restaurants who have decided not to sell bottled water. You can join the movement with your school or business.
23. Most funky taste in water can be removed with a filter. Chlorine taste will go away if you leave the water in an open pitcher overnight.
24. In 2003, the city of Johannesburg, South Africa started to install prepaid water meters, preventing the very poorest from accessing clean water. In 2008, the Johannesburg High Court declared this unconstitutional. This was a victory for the people, but the decision is being appealed, and the struggle continues.
25. The movement needs you. This isn’t just for activists – it’s for anyone whose body is made up of over 70% water. Click here to see how you can get involved.
I found your information on bottled water very interesting. I for one really can not stand the taste of tap water, but never have really felt comfortable with paying the price for bottled. After realizing what the plastic bottle could do to both my own health and the environment, I was even more turned off of buying bottled. You’re tips on getting rid of the chlorine taste of tap water will certainly be tested out by me. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a way to stop all of this horrible waste of such a needed resource.
Hi Tommy,thanks for saying so. We’re with you on finding ways to stop the waste! As far as other options for your drinking water, if you want more information, we also have a guide to filtering your tap water, explaining the different options and the differences between them. You can check it out at http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/take-action/consumer-tools/choosing-a-water-filter/tap-water-filtration-guide. Hope this helps–thanks for reading! -Erica Schuetz
Can you clarify what it means for a river to dry up before it reaches their end because the Columbia River does not dry up before it reaches the ocean. What are you talking about?
Tommy–I’m so glad to hear that you’re not turning to privatized water despite your concerns about the water coming from your tap. Not every system is perfect, but if we turn control over to corporations instead of funneling support into the public systems, they’ll only deteriorate. Coke, Nestle, and Pepsi are on the road to owning our water if we choose to support them rather than our local systems. Have you heard of Think Outside the Bottle? It’s a great campaign that works not only to stop B.W. corporations from turning water into a commodity (like oil), but also to support democratic control of water so that people like you don’t have to make that choice. Check it out; let me know what you think! http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/think-outside-bottle/
Hi Erica. I was drawn to your title: 25 things you don’t know about water. Instead of deleting yet another newsletter with wonderful information,I first read it all, including the information through the links in your article. I will publish it on my website http://www.ascensiontopics.com under my affiliate section and will include most of the links. Anything to spread this very important information. Many thanks.
Like Katie I too would like to know about the Columbia River comment about drying up. Not so, I posted this on Soda head and now no one believes me about anything. what’s the deal???????????????
Hi Katie and Joan,
Thanks for your attention to detail on this–you’re right, the post contained a mistake on my part. Being from the East Coast, I hadn’t noticed that I’d typed Columbia River when I meant Colorado River. You can read more about the Colorado River drying up here: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/colorado-river-47021303 or here: http://www.alternet.org/water/121535/is_the_american_southwest_running_dry/.
However, the Columbia River is also drying up, if more slowly: “The Columbia River in the U.S. Northwest lost about 14 percent of its volume from 1948 to 2004, largely because of reduced precipitation and higher water usage in the West,” according to an article on Reuters, which you can read here: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE53K4MR20090421.
Again, my sincere apologies for the mistake, and thanks for catching it! We are definitely dedicated to providing accurate information and we really appreciate your hard work in protecting our resources!
-Erica Schuetz