Improve your water footprint
For toned and radiant skin, even mental agility, the folks at bottled water companies are keen that we slosh back as much water as possible. Not drinking enough, as many of us apparently don’t, could have perilous results on our professional and social lives.
Hmm, maybe.
Actually, the world’s in pretty serious trouble, and it’s not because we’re all acne-ridden, dehydrated, career failing, anti-socialites. In spite of what drinks companies and the glossies might be telling us, we’re all consuming far FAR too much water.
The problem is, we don’t notice we’re doing it. Because it’s what’s called virtual water we’re consuming, it’s not making us run to the loo all the time, so we ignore it. And the figures are massive: a cup of coffee, for example, doesn’t contain one cup of water – it’s actually something around 140 litres.
The term virtual water was first coined by a geographer, Prof Tony Allen, in 1993. In August 2008, he was presented with a major prize for his work. Virtual water is, in short, the water used across the whole production chain of the product you’re consuming. So with coffee, all the water used to from irrigating crops to processing the beans into the ground form from which your espresso is made, is taken into account.
Anyone who’s spent their time in the UK during the months we used to think of as being summer, might be wondering what the fuss is about. The fact that it’s been pissing it down here isn’t actually much help, as almost all of our commodity industries are based elsewhere, often in the developing world where water is scarce and may be poorly managed.
Like a carbon footprint, totalling your consumption of virtual water, gives you your water footprint. Though the world’s covered in water, around 97% of that is sea water, and of the fresh water that remains, most is frozen in ice caps. And while we cheerfully over-consume, according to Water Aid around 1.1 billion people don’t have access to safe, clean water.
Cotton and meat production are the two biggest water consumers, so cutting down consumption of these two is a good start. Even switching from coffee to tea’ll help. Though still a lot, the average cuppa contains only 35 litres of virtual water.
Check out www.waterfootprint.org
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