Here in the West most people are well aware of the limited water supply. However, most Americans live in fairly wet areas and probably never give a second thought to the water they drink, shower in, and more importantly flush down the toilet.
I thought I’d list some quick facts about America’s mind boggling water usage[1]
- If all the world’s drinking water were put in one cubical tank, the tank would measure only 95 miles on each side.
- Number of people currently lacking access to clean drinking water: 1.2 billion.
- Percent of the world’s households that must fetch water from outside their homes: 67
- Percent increase in the world’s population by the middle of the 21st century: 100
- Percent increase in the world’s drinking water supplies by the middle of the 21st century: 0
- Amount of water Americans use every day: 340 billion gallons.
- Number of gallons of water needed to produce a car: 100,000
- Number of cars produced every year: 50 million.
- Amount of water required by a nuclear reactor every year: 1.9 cubic miles.
- Amount of water used by nuclear reactors every year: the equivalent of one and a third Lake Eries.
So all this to say, clean water is a precious resource, let’s start treating it like one.
- The Humanure Handbook; Jenkins, Joseph; hhttp://weblife.org/humanure/chapter2_2.html [↩]
