There are numerous simple methods to save water at home and at work.
At Pūrleve & ZeroFlush, our products not only conserve significant amounts of water, but we have also eliminated the need to use water for cleaning or washing the urinals.
Global Water Challenges:
- More than a billion people (almost one-fifth of the world’s population) lack access to safe drinking water, and 40 percent lack access to basic sanitation.
- 97.5% of all water on Earth is salt water, leaving only 2.5% as fresh water.
- Nearly 70% of that fresh water is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and Greenland; the remainder is found in soil moisture, or lies in deep underground aquifers as the groundwater is not accessible to human use.
- Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water is accessible for direct human uses. This is the water found in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and those underground sources that are shallow enough to be tapped at an affordable cost. Only this amount is regularly renewed by rain and snowfall, and is therefore available on a sustainable basis.
A Commitment to Conserve Water
With the exploding human population growth, especially in poor countries, these finite supplies of water are quickly reserved. Further, in places without proper sanitation, water can become tainted with any number of diseases and parasites.
Billions of People Lack Clean Water
According to the World Bank, as many as 2 billion people lack adequate sanitation facilities to protect them from water-borne disease, while a billion lack access to clean water altogether. According to the United Nations, 95% of the world’s cities still dump raw sewage into their water supplies.
Personal Action to Conserve Water Resources
We can reduce our water use to help conserve what is becoming an ever more precious resource. We can minimize the watering of our lawns in times of drought and when it does rain, we can gather gutter water in barrels to feed garden hoses and sprinklers. We can turn off the faucet while we brush our teeth or shave, and take shorter showers. Doing more with less is the first and easiest step along the path toward water security.
Problematic, But Far From Hopeless
The Good News: Improved management techniques have saved nearly 5% of the water used annually in global agricultural production, according to Unesco. Between August and October, 2008, residents of Union County, North Carolina decreased water consumption by 48% from the year before…simply because they heeded the call of state governor Mike Easley.
There are hundreds of similar Global success stories every day; however, only a good start and far from over.
Pūrleve & ZeroFlush is doing its part, and we urge you to do the same.