Water and Us

[Luminance]

Honestly speaking, what can we personally do to help ensure water substainability, apart from the usual wasting less water and not polluting water bodies by dumping litter into them?

 

As much as this is an assignment given, I too have interest in discussing on this topic. Seems interesting enough. I believe we can do a lot more to ensure water sustainability.

Thoughts?

[imatfaal]

I think you have to expand the definition of "litter" to fully grasp the problem. As an example perhaps look at the amount of water used in the production of usable fossil fuels from oil tar sands in Canada. It might also be worth considering salt water - whilst we often concentrate on fresh water, there are vast swathes of the ocean that are close to sterile and support very little life; the sustainability of water requires usable water and the definition of usable changes with context.

[Luminance]

Hi there.

 

I was actually referring "litter" to basically anything thrown into a water body that affects the quality of the water.

 

I think your mentioned examples concern a group effort, a community-based effort. However, what can we personally do as an individual?

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

Regards.

[imatfaal]

I guessed that was how you were using litter - but thought it was important to make the distinction

 

On a personal basis - whilst it is clear that any individual action is swamped by the actions of society it is worth thinking about personal ways of changing consumption patterns; apart from waste and litter, the first thing that would occur to me to lower one's "H20 footprint" would be diet/lifestyle. some foodstuffs and associated processing/packaging will require more water than others (by that I mean that more or less water will be removed from immediate and usable circulation). There is genuine concern in parts of Spain that the combination of great tracts of poly-tunnels growing fruit and veg and a hugely thirsty tourist industry are denuding water supplies to a dangerous extent.

[Luminance]

Haha I see.

 

That was interesting. Our ever changing lifestyles are degrading the sacredness of water indeed. On my part, I actually thought along the line of using our technology to ensure water sustainability, such as installing push button sink faucets instead of the usual and common household faucets where the water can run off the tap forever. Your clear insight in this matter has certainly helped me! =) Thank you.