Water…. I believe it is the second most precious thing on earth right after Oxygen. “Is Oxygen edible?”, there are people in our current society who ask that. In a society like this, there might as well be people who would ask, “Would we die without water?”. While living in a society like this, don’t you ever wonder if there will come a time in the future where we regret this very moment we are living in? A myriad of reasons may come to your mind now.
Ever heard of the Water Footprint? Take, for example, the T-shirt you are wearing at this very moment. How much water do you think went into the production of that T-shirt? On the surface, it seems like all it took were cloth, scissors, a sewing machine and thread. Just like many other goods, this product too has many hidden aspects.
97% of the water present on planet Earth exists in Oceans.
2% of the water present on planet Earth exist as Ice and Snow.
From the remaining 1%, 70% of Water is used up for Agriculture.
Have you ever thought about the process that produces the Cloth used to make your T-shirt?
From the very Cotton plant that took root on Earth, which ultimately became the cloth of your T-shirt, all the water it consumed is included in the T-shirt’s Water Footprint.
Cotton plants are water intensive for their growth. So to produce enough Cotton for your T-shirt, this plant consumes roughly 2700 liters of water. Do you know that this sheer amount of water equals to an average human’s 900 days drinking water consumption?
This was all about just one T-shirt produced in this world. This means that, in order to produce a 250g Cotton T-shirt, roughly 2700 liters of water is expended.
So imagine just how many such T-shirts you have in your possession. Now imagine how many exist in your village/city area, your entire country and the whole world.
This is not to say, we should avoid T-shirts and live like in the stone age. What we must emphasize is reducing the water footprint whichever way we can.
Countries like Pakistan, India, America and Africa utilize Sustainable farming methods to reduce their Water footprints of Cotton crops.
An average Sri Lankan uses around 250 liters of water each day. This is compared to an American’s average daily water usage of 7786 liters and a Chinese person’s usage of 2934 liters. Would you believe that this amount includes the water footprint of our daily food consumption as well?
What can we do to reduce our own Water footprint?
When we use water, do we ever think about how many water droplets we use and how much value each droplet possesses?
Yet, how much water have we wasted till now, while ignoring the value each drop held?
Sustainable Thinking… When using any resource present in this world, we need to be mindful in order to save them for future generations as well. We need to imprint this fact into the very depths of our memory.
Remember that these are all riches gifted to us by mother nature and does not belong to us. \
https://waterfootprint.org/.../national-water-footprint/
https://www.worldwildlife.org/.../the-impact-of-a-cotton...
https://www.ncpcsrilanka.org/.../Module-3.-Overview-of…
On behalf of the Green Pulse Society,
Written by Isuri Manathunga
Edited by Anton Raveen
Translated by Disuri Samarakoon
#green #greentechnology #universityofruhuna #uor #ruhuna #waterfootprint #footprint
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