Why Conserve Water?
We hear in the news about regular water conservation, especially in California. With all the rain we have experienced recently and the Orovilled Dam at risk of overflowing to flood the community below, why do we need to conserve water? Well, water shortage does not reside just within California. It is a global issue. Additionally, the world uses water in everyday life and our consumption exceeds the water supply available. [1]About 2% of Earth’s fresh water is locked in glaciers and ice caps, while 97 percent is salt water. So you say, no big deal, just use desalination plants, right?
Issues With Desalination
The process of water desalination requires a lot of money, resources and WATER.
1. The cost of water for farmers in California is normally $50 per acre-foot of water.
2. The cost of desalinated seawater may be $700 or more per acre-foot of water.
In addition to production costs, there are additional environmental costs for desalinization such as…
1. Where to dump the brine?
2. Depending on the type of energy source used for desalination, what by products of chemicals, gases or heat are released from the process? It could produce more toxic or global warming side effects to the environment and all life than benefit it.
Household & Industrial Contamination
Our finite amount of water is stressed by increasing household and industrial contamination. Every time we use water we also have to dispose of it. Most often, we deposit the waste water into the ocean, a lake or a river. The more we use it, the more waste disposal we have to contend with. Thus we increase contamination to our drinking water supply, even when we try to separate clean water from dirty water.
Remember, if we cannot use gasoline or oil for our automobiles, we may be able to use natural gas, hydrogen, electricity, steam or vegetable oil. But all living organisms require water to sustain life, as there is no substitue for water. The adult body contains up to 60% water, which supports healthy brains, organs, skin and bodily functions.
Not only do living things require water, all manufacturing of products require a huge amount of water. This pertains to everything that we have, see or touch like cell phones, cars, clothing and more.These items are great contributors to our water shortage. For example,
1. It takes roughly 20 gallons of water to make a pint of beer. Although some may try to use alcohol as water substitutes, it is inadvisable for the body.
2. What about soda? That consumes about 132 gallons of water to make a 2 liter bottle of soda.
3. About 500 gallons of water is required to make a pair of Levi’s stonewashed jeans.
4. Manufacturing of a car requires about 39,090 gallons of water.
As you can see, it is not just human water consumption that poses water shortage threats. The manufacturing process of all things we use in our day to day contributes to water depletion. All these things drain and contaminate our drinking water supply. As we cannot live without the efficiencies of life because of the products we use, we have to be more conservative in our water usage to sustain life for all that inhabit our earth.
Urban Well Filtered Drinking Fountains For Communities
Again, water is the sustenance of ALL life, so let us help each other conserve and provide clean drinking water for our communities. Instead of letting existing water fountains go unused and not maintained, leaking precious water because straight tap water is not as sanitary, Urban Well maintains, repairs and retrofits drinking fountains to provide cleaned, filtered drinking water for our society. To minimize pollutants that may exist in tap water, we retrofit existing drinking fountains or install new filtered water fountains in commercial buildings, schools, universities, theme parks, public parks, etc. So help Urban Well “Save Our World One Drinking Fountain At A Time”! Contact us at INFO@URBAN-WELL.COM for more information.
References:
1. “Why is water conservation so important”, Reference.com https://www.reference.com/science/water-conservation-importanta
2. “Running Out of Water”, Peter Rogers and Susan Leal, Pages 6 and 7
3. “Yet Another ‘Footprint’ to Worry About: Water”, Wall Street Journal, www.wsj.com/articles, Alexandra Alter,
4. “Water Resource of the United States”, USGS Science For A Changing World, https://www2.usgs.gov/water/, Updated Dec. 15, 2016 09:01 a.m. EST
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