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16 Astounding Facts About Water

glass of water

We often take the most basic and everyday things for granted. Water is no exception. We expect it to be available when we turn the sink on and think nothing of where that water has been or how it’s traveled to our faucet. However, there’s way more to water than you think.

Yes! has a great page of water facts that highlight just how little we know about the world’s most precious commodity. Nothing can survive without it, but how often do we really appreciate it? Take some of these facts, for example:

  • 60 percent of the world’s fresh water comes from rivers shared by at least two countries.
  • Lake Mead, Nev., has a $1 billion a year tourism and recreation industry. There’s a 50-50 chance the lake will be dry by 2050.
  • A 1 percentΒ  increase in organic matter allows soil to hold 16,000 more gallons of water per acre.
  • Water managers in 36 states expect shortages by 2013.
  • One quart of used motor oil can contaminate 250,000 gallons of water.
  • Putting water in plastic bottles and shipping it just 125 miles uses 1,100 times more energy than producing tap water.

These are truly amazing statistics. Water is truly sacred and in dire need of conservation and protection from pollution. There’s more than a few things to think about the next time you reach for that faucet!

You can help save water with a few changes around the house. Check out our current listings of affordable water saving devices, including shower heads, faucets, and toilet handles.

Image credit: darkpatator at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

3 comments
  1. Tim Kovach

    Great post and thanks for drawing me to the Yes! piece as well. Clearly water is the most important resource we have, and it is about time that people have started to pay attention to the challenges we currently face in conserving and ensuring access to clean water. A lack of access to clean water threatens everything we take for granted – health, sanitation, security, business, etc.

    But making smart use of water, like other materials, is not some altruistic move. It makes good sense financially. It reduces the amount of money you spend on water, it reduces the amount you spend on sewage and water disposal, it takes strain off the wastewater/sewer system (which helps to prevent flooding, backups, erosion, contamination, etc.), and the list goes on from there. Hopefully more businesses will begin to see that protecting our “liquid” resources is vital for their future viability and can help improve their bottom lines today.

    – Tim Kovach,
    Product Coordinator, Energy at COSE
    http://www.cose.org/blog
    http://www.twitter.com/COSEenergy

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