The water that comes out of our taps is a drop in the bucket compared to the water that it takes to make the products and food we buy.
Photo credit: Alexandre Duret-Lutz
Transcript of the Audio Podcast:
Tracing your water footprint… …on this CurrentCast.
It’s often said that the average American uses eighty to one hundred gallons of water per day. But that is a drop in the bucket when you consider that water is used to produce food, clothes, and necessities. Every purchase we make impacts our water footprint, not just the water that comes out of the tap.
For example, water was needed to grow the cotton used to make that shirt, it was used to produce the gas in the car, and to grow the corn and grass that fed the beef on tonight’s menu.
So reducing your water consumption is not as simple as cutting back at home. We must also consider which products we purchase and how they were made.
Support for CurrentCast comes from the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas. Learn more online at http://www.current-cast.org.
Learn More:
- “Indoor Water Use in the US” from the Environmental Protection Agency
- “Water Footprint Calculator” from Grace communications Foundation
- “Water Footprint of an American” from The Nature Conservancy
- “Water Footprint Calculator” from National Geographic
