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Water Footprint.Org
web site
This fascinating web site about water use and conservation provides some startling facts about water consumption: It takes an average of 16,000 liters of water to produce 1kg of beef. That's about 1000 gallons a pound in American. Leather bags and clothing items are one of the worst offenders due to the amount of water required to raise and transport the animals, and then the additional water used to tan the leather. In fact, an average-sized leather bag requires over 6000 gallons of water to produce. Check out the Water Footprints web site for water usage figures on a variety of common products, as well as common activities like showering and washing your car. They even provide a water calculator (see link below) where you can calculate water usage figures for other products, and compute your own water footrpint based on your personal diet and activities...
› Product Water Usage Calculator
› Water Usage Gallery for popular products
› Article on The Water Footprint Project
The Story of Bottled Water
Annie Leonard
Another great animated video by Annie Leonard and Free Range Studios explains that a lot of bottled water is no cleaner or safer than tap water. In fact, many popular bottled water brands actually use tap water, re-packaged in a pretty bottle that makes it look somehow more healthy. Pepsi's Aquafina is one brand that was recently busted for this practice. The rest of the video is about the incredible cost to the environment of all those plastic bottles, 80% of which are thrown away rather than recycled in the U.S. The obvious answer to the dilemna is to buy locally produced natural spring water that comes in a re-usable dispener that never needs to be thrown away...
Flow
Irena Salina (documentary, 2007)
Flow is a new documentary that showed well at Sundance this year. It addresses the global water crisis—particularly the problems with bottled water, which impacts global warming significantly—and water rights, which are being bought up by more & more corporations. Many will recall Bechtel's attempt to buy up Bolivian glaciers which led to massive protests and an end to that deal. But there will be more deals like it as fresh water becomes more scarce. Many will also remember the story about Pepsi's Aquafina, which is nothing but tap water, sold at a 7000% profit margin. Coke has their brand and Nestle is becoming a big player as well. Best to keep on top of this issue or we may find ourselves paying for every sip of water we take.
› Flow web site
