The colours of your water footprint
22 March: World water day
Let’s see how much you know about the water in your life. Question number 1: How much water do you think you use every day? Would you say you need about 300 litres of water to drink, cook, bath, wash the dishes and flush the toilet? That sounds about right, but it’s wrong. You must consider your total footprint. You probably use more than 4000 litres of water a day! How on earth is this possible?
Well, according to the Water Footprint Network (www.waterfootprint.org), to produce the food we eat in one single day farmers can use about 4000 litres of water! With the typical South African diet, with high meat consumption, it can even be much more than that. Think about the 750g bag of carrots in your fridge. Can you imagine that the farmer used up to 100 litres of water to grow this small bag of carrots? That is the same as 10 buckets of water! And it does not include the water that was polluted with fertilisers and pesticides or any other water used in cleaning, packaging and distributing the carrots. In South Africa, irrigation on farms uses almost two thirds of the total fresh water that is abstracted for use. On top of that, an awful lot of fruits and vegetables are wasted from the farm to the consumer. How often do you throw away a bag of fruits or vegetables that has never been opened?
Every country needs a certain amount of fresh water every day to sustain its people and its economy. Obviously, if a country has a lot of water, the actual volume that is used may not be relevant. Unfortunately, South Africa does not have a lot of fresh water and all water uses should be reduced as much as possible. Most people think that we will always have enough water, because we have always had enough water. But that is not true, because the demand for fresh water is always increasing with the ever-growing population and economy. And we are already close to our limits. Using water the way we do now is already harming our beautiful ecosystems and poor communities. We simply can’t have all the water to ourselves, we have to share it with the plants, the fish, the frogs and the people who can’t pay for it as well. So, it is vital to think and think again about the food we buy and how we use it.
Question number 2: What is the colour of water? Colourless? Yes, but nowadays we say water can be blue, green or grey. Blue water is the water in dams and rivers and groundwater that anyone can use for any reason. Green water is rainwater that falls on the ground and can only be used by plants. Grey water is the volume of water needed to dilute the harmful chemicals we put into water. These are the colours that we use to calculate your water footprint. Your water footprint tells you how much blue, green and grey water you use both in your house and through the products you buy. Crops grow with rainwater, groundwater or water from dams. They also need a lot of fertilisers and pesticides that end up in groundwater and rivers. So, when we buy food we have a blue, green and grey water footprint.
What can you do to reduce your water footprint? You can start by reducing the food you throw away. Plan your meals for the week so that you don’t buy food that you don’t need. Get those old family recipes to preserve food as they did in the good old days. You can also reduce your water footprint if you buy food that is grown locally. The further you are from the farm, the more food is wasted on its way to you. Remember that the ultimate local source of vegetables is your backyard. Besides, a vegetable garden is the best way to get your kids to willingly and enthusiastically eat vegetables. If you really want to go all the way, water your vegetable garden with recycled water from your bathtub or get yourself a rainwater harvesting tank. So, let us all work together to make a big difference by saving the water in our country. This way our children and their children will have a colourful future with a lot of blue, green and grey water in it!