National Geographic has always been one of my favorite magazines to read. Last week I received an issue on water. Inside was an insert on virtual water: the amount of water used to create a product. I was shocked. The concept was developed by geographer Tony Allan of King's College London in the 90's. He had one question in mind... why were countries with limited water resources not in a war to fight for their share? Well, he found out that these countries were importing food-- food grown with other countries water.
For instance, the virtual water used to hydrate cows, grow their feed, and clean their waste equaled 1,857 gallons per pond. During the lifetime of that one cow approximately 816,600 gallons of water will be used in total. CRAZY. The list goes on, including dairy products, produce, etc.
Beyond that, common goods like a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, or bedsheets also use an immense amount of water. Cotton is a water-intensive crop--and heavily fertilized. It takes 2, 900 gallons of water to produce one pair of blue jeans. 2,800 for cotton bedsheets. 766 gallons for a cotton T-shirt. The list goes on and on. And that doesn't include the life of these cotton products one a person owns and washes them several times.
I thought this was very interesting. I take too much for granted. I wake up every day and choose a pair of jeans to wear while a girl my age half way around the world is walking 10 miles just for a clean glass of water to drink.
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