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Page added on February 16, 2015
How Much Water You Use May Surprise You
Do you know how much water you use?
I’m not talking about the amount on your monthly water bill.
I’m talking about how much water do you really use as a result of the products you eat, wear or use every day.
I didn’t either before reading a new book titled “Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much Water We Use to Make Everyday Products“ by Stephen Leahy (Firefly Books, Richmond Hill, Ontario, 127 pages, $19.95).
Water is essential to life.
If we didn’t consume enough water daily directly in liquid form or indirectly through the food we eat, we would eventually die.
Water is an obvious part of our daily lives in some familiar ways.
We also use water for familiar tasks such as washing dishes and clothes and flushing the toilet. Water is used on our behalf for electric power generation and food production.
But we use water in ways that are not quite as obvious.
It takes 15,850 gallons to produce the fuel to power the typical car we drive in its lifetime.
It takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce a pair of jeans.
It takes 634 gallons to produce a cheeseburger.
It takes 366 gallons to produce a stick of butter.
It takes 240 gallons to produce a smartphone.
It takes 52 gallons to produce an egg.
It takes 37 gallons to produce a cup of coffee.
You get the idea.
These figures are based on the proportionate water consumption used to grow or process the materials that go into making these products.
The logical question to arise out of this discussion is what’s the best way to reduce one’s water footprint.
Quite a bit, Leahy writes.
There are obvious actions such as taking shorter showers, turning off faucets instead of letting water run and irrigating less.
But the list also includes purchasing second-hand clothing or wearing polyester clothing instead of cotton clothing, patronize businesses that promote water conservation, drive less, collect rooftop runoff in rain barrels and support increased use of reclaimed water.
Some of you may doing some of these things already.
The book is timely because water is a topic that is frequently discussed in Florida by elected officials and other government officials, environmentalists, business leaders and journalists.
Leahy, who is an international environmental journalist based in Canada, describes the water consumption issue in a term that relates other recent crises.
He describes it as a “water bubble,” which calls to mind the real estate bubble, the banking bubble and other phenomena where illusory prosperity preceded a collision with reality and the crash that followed.
He’s referring to the unsustainable use of water. That is, in some parts of the world, including parts of Florida, water has been withdrawn faster than rainfall can replenish the aquifer.
The results can include depleted river flow and lake levels, sinkholes and saltwater intrusion into aquifers.
Leahy doesn’t limit the discussion to water quantity issues in the United States.
The book also discusses international water issues such as the availability of clean drinking water in many parts of the world, the growing amount of the world’s population that will face water shortages and the role other environmental factors such as population growth, pollution and climate change play in these problems.
The book includes extensive references and an index, which makes it a useful reference tool and a gateway to learn more about this complex subject.
polk outdoor
6 Comments on "How Much Water You Use May Surprise You"
paulo1 on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 6:47 am
I got news for you who believe this crap. It does not take 52 gallons to produce an egg and that includes the scratch and/or pellets one might use as well as bring said chick to egg laying pullet.
Citation: me…I have been raising chickens for decades.
Davy on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 7:07 am
Exactly Paulo, extremist come in many colors this one is a greenie. To get an effect they exaggerate and focus on selective facts. This makes a mockery of their point. I have heard of how much water cattle use but one should make the point water falls in the form of rain and is caught in catchment basins call lakes and ponds where the cattle drink. If an area does not have a ground water issues the well delivered water is not a problem. It is the industrial agriculture of cattle that is an excessive water usage source.
This article should have shown the extremes with the moderates. We know modern life is energy intensive. One of the worst is every time we flick a light switch because that thermo-power plants are using water for cooling and steam generation. Power plants are among the worst but most people have no clue that their lights are consuming water. The alternative would be residential AltE which uses water in its production cycle only and once in a great while to top off batteries. The large AltE farms may use water in cooling and cleaning of mirrors and panels but this is still far less than FF plants.
What we need today in discussions is fairness and balance otherwise we get a distorted view of the truth. There are those who claim beef production is wrong well they are wrong because they should clarify that statement with industrial beef production. Grass raised cattle have a place on land that is only useful for grazing. Our modern life is full of extreme views as to be surreal. It is almost though the BAU facts of marketing and political propaganda agendas have taken over scientific method. The objective reporting of history has been coopted by agnedist. If we are going to find our way in the darkness of BAU with the cliff nearby should we not reject extremism of all colors?
Makati1 on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 7:29 am
Let’s see what disappears as the droughts encircle the globe. So many ideas, so little time.
farmlad on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 7:58 am
Is water a critical issue? Yes. Is this a balanced article? No way. Does it offer meaningfull solutions? Not at all.
Since this is a forum dedicated to peak oil I’ll use oil measurements. In an average year, I manage 917,417 barrels “thats 1,310 rail car loads” of water. You may have guessed, this is the amount of rain that falls on my property in an ave year. That is a total of 43 acres in an area that receives 33″, the ave over the whole lower 48 is 30″.
My goal is to use up and reuse every last gallon. #1 I dont want to see any runoff “Thats what causes all the damage and waste, soil erosion from flooding”. I try to hang on to it as long as I can. I try to keep the soil covered with vegetation and the soil filled with living roots all year. Yes, thats right, under that blanket of snow those roots are alive and well, collecting valuable nutrients that would otherwise be subject to leaching, and would eventually contaminate the ground water.
So my sheep consume a lot of water in the green grass and supplemental water and you might think that this water is now used up. But I will go right ahead and just use it again. I just let them poop and pee all over the pasture and that water will then be water for the dung beetles, earthworms, and plants. the sheep will then eat that grass again, and pee again. Of course there is always moisture being lost out of the system but as long as it does not get contaminated with chemicals, radiation, etc, it is available to be used again. Some of this water will go down below the roots and eventually end up in my well and will again be used. The ground water that I don’t use will be available for my neighbors to irrigate their hydroponic crop fields or for the stream that runs on the north side of my property and out to lake michigan, to float the barges, and raise the fish on lake Erie and then on to awe the visitors at Niagara.
Bottom line; As long as you don’t pollute the water you can keep on reusing a significant portion of it again and again. Something that articles of this ilk do not take into consideration
farmlad on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 8:08 am
great points Paulo1 and davy Wow; I dont get this “hot under the collar” every day.
dubya on Mon, 16th Feb 2015 2:38 pm
I just don’t understand these frightening expose’s of how much water it takes to make a cabbage. So what? I once heard of something called “the water cycle” which reuses this stuff, amazing.
Now burying it in a well seems illogical.
But I will guarantee that every drop of water I drank I have peed back out into the system.