Environment - Water

Turn on the tap and there it is.  Getting water is so easy that you’d be mistaken for thinking that there was an endless supply.  But the world has a water shortage.  About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water - we should call our planet ‘ocean’ not ‘earth’!  But most of this water is salt water, leaving only a small percentage of fresh drinking water.  Countries including Spain, Italy, Peru, China and South Africa actually import water from exporting countries such as the US, Australia and Argentina. 783 million people do not have access to clean water and 2.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation.  This global shortage is predicted to get worse as global temperatures rise.

Every person in the UK uses about 150 litres of water a day - compare this to some countries where they only have 5-10 litres!  Poor countries would be shocked to hear that we use drinking water to flush our toilets.  There are many simple ways that we can reduce our water use.  Let’s have a look at how you can help:

How to help:

• Get your teeth into it  We brush our teeth twice a day and by turning the tap off while we brush we can save 5-10 litres of water.  If every adult in the UK did this then we’d save enough water for 500,000 homes.  So, kids - let’s show them how it’s done!
• Bottle in your loo  What?  Put a bottle in your loo?  That’s right.  If it will fit, fill up a lemonade or cola bottle with water and pop it into your loo’s water tank.  Then when you flush and the water fills back up you’ll save a bottle’s worth every time.  
• Rain Gain  Collecting rainwater in a water butt in your garden is a great way of collecting and reusing the water to keep plants healthy in the summer.
• Reuse   Share bath water with your family to reduce costs and water use.  Or, set yourself a challenge to cut down your shower time by 1 or 2 minutes.

For more information take a look at our fun free magazine download called The Yippittee - this issue is all about water, where it goes and what happens to it after it disappears down the plughole and more.