Water, water, every where*
In Canada we are blessed with an abundance of water. When I thought about it at all, I used to think that my water consumption was about brushing my teeth, doing the laundry and watering the garden.
A book I read recently changed the way I think about water use. According to environmental journalist Stephen Leahy, author of Your Water Footprint, "each item you purchase, each form of transportation and energy you use, in fact each activity you do throughout the day has a water footprint we can measure. A water footprint is the total amount of freshwater required to produce an item or carry out an activity".
Here are some examples from Leahy's book of the water footprints of items we consume or use and activities we engage in every day:
- one apple 125 liters
- one cup of coffee 140 liters
- one kilo of beef 15,400 liters
- one 10-minute shower 175 liters
- one round of golf 8,000 liters
- one smartphone 910 liters
- one pair of jeans 7,600 liters
There are online tools to calculate water footprints, both personal and for products and processes. I used the Water Footprint Calculator to calculate my household water use and the Water Footprint Network's resources on product water footprints to learn more about the water resources used to make everyday products.
Next week you can meet Stephen Leahy at the North York Central Library, where he will present a talk based on his thought-provoking book.
Location: North York Central Library Auditorium
Date: Wednesday July 22, 2015
Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
If you want to learn more about our use of water:
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* From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The full verse:
Water, water, every where
and all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where
Nor any drop to drink.
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