I’ve been mindful of the amount of water I use when making a pot of coffee ever since learning that one-third of the tap water used for drinking in North America is actually used to brew our daily cups of joe—and that if each of us avoided wasting just one cupful of coffee a day, we could save enough water over the course of a year to provide two gallons to every one of the more than 1.1 billion people who don’t have access to freshwater at all.
That is a stark statistic, when as many as 5 million people die unnecessarily each year because of lack of water and water-related illnesses; one-third are under age 5.
So for me that excess cold coffee at the bottom of the pot became a bothersome reminder. But I had never thought beyond that—about how much water it takes to actually grow the coffee. That amount is called virtual water (pdf), and it’s the kind of thing you don’t really consider until someone brings it to your attention: “Do you know how much water it took to make this?” Virtual water is a calculation of the water needed for the production of any product from start to finish.
Here’s how it is figured: It takes about 155 gallons of water on average to grow a pound of wheat. So the virtual water of this pound of wheat is 155 gallons. For a pound of meat, the virtual water is 5 to 10 times higher. There’s a virtual water count for everything. The virtual water footprint of a cup of coffee is 37 gallons; an apple, 19 gallons; a banana, 27; a slice of bread, 10; a sheet of paper, 3; and a pair of leather shoes, 4,400, according to Waterfootprint.org, a Unesco-run Web site providing a calculator for individual and national water use. In fact, virtual water in internationally traded food and products such as these accounts for 15 percent of global water consumption.
Virtual water matters a lot these days because we are in an encroaching global water crisis. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the world needs to increase its water supply (pdf) for irrigation by 14 to 17 percent by 2030 just to meet its dietary needs. Virtual water is where major savings can accrue.
Proper management and use of the world’s virtual water already save almost 5 percent of the water used annually in global agricultural production, according to Unesco. This follows a simple logic: Places with less water gain access to foods with high water requirements by importing them from areas with high rainfall or substantial water supplies. This allows water-scarce regions to use their own water resources more efficiently for other purposes—and create water savings. For instance, areas of southern China that have more water and are better equipped to grow certain water-intensive agricultural products can send them to northern China. This frees up northern water supplies for other uses, such as drinking and sanitation. Jordan saves 60 to 90 percent of its domestic water supply by importing water-intensive products.
The water savings are even greater than they seem at first. Producing grain and other foods in an arid country like Jordan may require two or three times the water it takes in humid settings in South America or the United States. So the virtual water saved may be three times the amount that was actually necessary to grow the crop in a more appropriate climate. It’s all about being smart with water.
Yet we can be smarter, and need to be.
Right now we lose 30 to 50 percent of the food we grow—and all the virtual water in it—by the time it is ready for consumption, says Daniel Zimmer, executive director of the World Water Council (WWC) in Marseille, France. These losses come in harvesting, production, processing, transportation, and storage. Tossing out leftovers wastes every drop of water it took to grow the food (and think of all the times you don’t ask for a doggie bag). Indeed, the third most common refuse found in landfills is food, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Sure, a few liters of water are saved when you take a shorter shower,” Zimmer says. “But hundreds of liters of water are lost when you throw away food. We have to begin to think about our water use differently.”
I like the idea of virtual water because it helps us think about our water use differently without having to make giant, complicated leaps. It puts water into the context it deserves: We use freshwater mostly for agriculture, not for drinking or bathing. Today agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of all water use in the world and up to 95 percent in several developing countries. So it makes sense to first start looking at savings via food production. And when I say savings, I mean efficiencies and better water management, not necessarily avoiding particular food groups altogether—although that isn’t such a bad idea once in a while either. Meat requires 5 to 10 times more water to produce than vegetables do. Swap the two in your diet and you will save up to 750 gallons of water a day. (See “What’s Your Virtual Water IQ?” page 26.)
While thinking about water differently should be a moral imperative, in a world view it comes with controversy. “At the global level, virtual water and the trading of it has geopolitical implications,” the WWC says in a report on the subject (pdf). “It induces dependencies between countries....This can be regarded either as a stimulant for cooperation or as a reason for potential conflict.”
Right now the United States is a water exporter, but population growth, pollution, and lingering drought in vast regions may change that. “As demand grows we are going to have to ask what is it being used for and whether that is a good use of our water,” says Maude Barlow, cofounder of the Blue Planet Project. “One-third of the water in the United States is exported as virtual water when a number of major water systems in the United States are in a catastrophic decline. People may begin to say, ‘Why are we shipping our water away?’”
Dominant virtual water exporters in addition to the United States are Canada, Australia, Argentina, and Thailand. Countries with a large net import of virtual water are Japan, Sri Lanka, Italy, South Korea, and the Netherlands. Based on estimated global virtual water trade flows, national virtual water trade balances can be drafted, but getting countries to agree on creating a fair market for water isn’t easy. “Trade arrangements, access to markets, finance, and foreign exchange must all be taken into account,” the WWC says in its report. For poorer countries those are big obstacles.
International companies are also being pitted against one another because of water shortages and competition for existing resources. The food industry, for example, may end up fighting the biofuel industry for access to arable land as the world runs short of water, warns Peter Brabeck, Nestlé’s chairman and chief executive. “We will not find sufficient water to produce all the crops,” he told the Financial Times in February. “There will be a fierce fight for arable land.” But that doesn’t have to be the case.
“Companies like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and many others particularly like the water footprint concept,” says Arjen Hoekstra, professor of multidisciplinary water management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He notes that because many businesses depend on water as a major component for their products, it’s in their best interests to ensure supplies are plentiful to avoid the potential conflicts. “Some companies see the business risks attached to water scarcity and seriously look into how to reduce and offset their water footprint,” Hoekstra adds.
In the end, though, water parity and more supply will come only through increased awareness among individuals, as they will drive the larger interests. “It’s really about education and getting people to see their own water use and their water footprint; we think that is the first step in conservation,” says Scott Cullen, executive director of the nonprofit group Grace (Grass Roots Action Center for the Environment). Along with Food & Water Watch, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Grace has developed a water footprint calculator for a joint program, H2Oconserve.org. Initiatives such as this may lead to further developments, such as labeling the water content of products. This, in turn, may lead to even more water-conscious decision making. “Tastes Great…Less Filling…Less Water”—that type of thinking.
It’s time to ask how we can make better use of our water supplies so that virtual water doesn’t remain the ethereal concept its name suggests. It can be a far bigger source of real-world savings. For my part, I now note waste in different forms. I try to plan or order meals more accurately so I don’t have leftovers, and I try to eat lower down the food chain. In short, I try to do what my mother told me as a child—“Eat your vegetables”—because I now know what went into making them: a lot of water.
Our Very Wet Footprint
The average person on earth has a virtual water footprint of about 328,410 gallons each year; that includes everything used to make the food, clothing, and other water-driven products we consume. In China the average footprint is only 185,412 gallons, while in the United States it is 656,012—the largest on the planet. DISCOVER staffers Missy Adams and Corey Powell measured their water footprints using a questionnaire at Waterfootprint.org (and you can too). Questions ranged from how many showers they take each week to whether the water runs while they brush their teeth; from their food preferences to their income.
Research Editor Missy Adams has a relatively small footprint (see chart below), in part because she’s light on the laundry and quick with a shower and has a diet driven by vegetables, fruits, and sweets.
Executive Editor Corey Powell likes meat in his takeout, and you’re sure to find chicken breasts and beef in his freezer—something to cook up while he’s watering his garden or hosing off his sidewalk in Brooklyn.
VIRTUAL WATER USAGE (annual average per person, in gallons)
| World | 328,410 |
| United States | 656,012 |
| Missy Adams | 469,792 |
| Corey Powell | 1,047,437 |
To determine your own virtual water footprint, go to waterfootprint.org.
Where’s the Water
There are 10,460 cubic miles of freshwater available on the planet as a resource each year, and the breakdown of worldwide access to it just isn’t equal. But understanding who has the good stuff and who is in need can allow us to maximize commerce in virtual water, helping balance things out. For instance, Kuwait has essentially no freshwater; its residents live off desalinated seawater, which doesn’t count as a direct resource. South America, on the other hand, has an enormous surplus of freshwater due to rainfall and its ecosystem, so it is a great exporter of virtual water. Source: Worldmapper.org. (All percentages are estimates.)
Find out your Virtual Water IQ by taking the DISCOVER quiz.
The World's Largest Dump: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
07.10.2008
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump
In the central North Pacific, plastic outweighs surface zooplankton 6 to 1.
by Thomas M. Kostigen
Image courtesy of NOAA
synthetic sea where particles concentrate by season, trash commutes in t
I had never been so excited to see garbage in my life. I was actually giddy. After flying from Los Angeles to the Big Island of Hawaii, I hitched a ride on the research vessel Alguita as it did a shakedown cruise, readying to set sail to traverse the massive Eastern Garbage Patch, which lies between there and California. This rubbish-strewn patch floats within the North Pacific Gyre, the center of a series of currents several thousand miles wide that create a circular effect, ensnaring trash and debris. Around and around: bottles, plastic bags, fishnets, clothing, lighters, and myriad other man-made items, held until they disintegrate, make their way to distant seas, or merely bob among the waves before washing up on someone’s beach.
I learned about the Eastern Garbage Patch, also called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, from studies the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, based in Long Beach, California, has conducted while trolling it seven times over the past decade. The foundation’s fieldwork has revealed an ever-growing he currents from far-off places, and plastic outweighs zooplankton, retarding ocean life. Fascinating stuff. Captain Charles Moore founded the Algalita foundation and commands its research vessel, the Alguita. (Maddeningly similar names, I know.)
Moore first discovered the garbage patch when he crossed the Pacific in 1997 after competing in the Transpacific Yacht Race. Since then he has been passionate about investigating it and creating awareness about its significance—and the significance of the Eastern Garbage Patch is enormous. His findings have gone a long way toward educating the science community, if not yet the public, on the magnitude of marine pollution and its impact on life—all life.
Sitting on the deck of his boat in Hilo Harbor, Hawaii, last January, he tells me about the crew’s next mission, which is just days away: to map the size, content, and density of the Eastern Garbage Patch. The patch, you see, isn’t well understood. People think it’s like a solid mass of trash you’d find at a dump site (I’ve been asked: “Can you walk on it?” “Can you land a plane on it?”), but it’s really diffuse, like “plastic soup,” as Moore describes it.
But don’t for a second think that its mass isn’t substantial. Its sprawl may cover an area as much as one and a half times? the size of the United States, Moore says, and to a depth of 100 feet, if not deeper. But because this rubbish is in the ocean, it drifts. Fragments peel off here and there; some of it drops to the ocean floor. Even for those who do understand the makeup of the garbage patch, its effect on the marine ecosystem is as yet largely unknown.
Moore, 61, is a scruffy sea captain whose blue eyes are both sad and keen. His salt-and-pepper hair is typically covered by an odd-fitting hat (“Die Trying” emblazoned across its brow). He is, as most sailors go, an old salt.
“In the central North Pacific Gyre, pieces of plastic outweigh surface zooplankton by a factor of 6 to 1,” according to a report based on Moore’s research. “Ninety percent of Laysan albatross chick carcasses and regurgitated stomach contents contain plastics. Fish and seabirds mistake plastic for food. Plastic debris releases chemical additives and plasticizers into the ocean. Plastic also adsorbs hydrophobic pollutants like PCBs and pesticides like DDT. These pollutants bioaccumulate in the tissues of marine organisms, biomagnify up the food chain, and find their way into the foods we eat.”
You’ll notice the emphasis on plastics. Most other materials biodegrade or are not as buoyant as plastics, which do not biodegrade. Their resilience is also their menace, as today plastics have invaded the most distant places, from the Bering Sea to the South Pole. Indeed, when I was exploring a remote beach past the South Point of Hawaii, I found pill bottles from India and mashed pieces of various products—oil containers, detergent jugs, plastic caps—with Russian, Korean, and Chinese writing on them. It’s hard to get your brain around these connections. But float these things did, to shore.
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Image courtesy of Joel Pashal/ Algalita Marine Research Foundation
How trash makes its way to the garbage patch is pretty straightforward. When a plastic cup gets blown off the beach in, say, San Francisco, it gets caught in the California Current, which makes its way down the coast toward Central America. Somewhere off the coast of Mexico it most likely meets the North Equatorial Current, which flows toward Asia. Off the coast of Japan, the Kuroshio Current might swoop it up and yank it eastward again, until the North Pacific Current takes over and carries it past Hawaii to the garbage patch. These are the currents that make up the North Pacific Gyre. Moore says it takes a year for material to reach the Eastern Garbage Patch from Asia and several years for it to get there from the United States. Now multiply that one cup by billions of plastic items over years and years—actually about 60 years, starting after World War II, when we really began to make plastic products en masse.
Marcus Eriksen, Algalita’s director of research and education, has studied that connection between the increasing amount of plastic found in the ocean and the increasing amount of plastic produced: In 1999 there was 0.002 gram of plastic per square meter of ocean in the Eastern Garbage Patch, and as of 2005 there was 0.004 gram per square meter in the same place. In that same period plastic production in North America alone experienced double-digit growth, topping 113 billion pounds in 2006, according to the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council in Arlington, Virginia.
Beyond plastic degradation and its toxic ramifications, other refuse issues ensue. Twenty-mile castaway fishnets snare sea turtles, dolphins, and other animals, endangering their populations; birds mistake trash for food, eat it, and die; jellyfish get sick; gnarly junk washes back to shore—some of it hazardous waste. The Eastern Garbage Patch isn’t just a problem for those living in the middle of the ocean; it’s a problem for those of us who are landbound as well.
Moore likens the patch to a cemetery and the trash heading toward it to a series of funeral processions. “There are bigger particles in the processions because they haven’t degraded as much yet,” he says. But inside the patch, where trash has been disintegrating for years—even decades—the particles are much finer. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reports that 70 percent of marine litter sinks. So who knows what is also building up on the ocean floor?
To be sure, the Eastern Garbage Patch isn’t a lone phenomenon. Off the coast of Japan there is a Western Garbage Patch. And each of the other oceans has its own, albeit smaller, floating patches of debris. Even so, the Eastern Garbage Patch—rooted square between California and Hawaii—is most intriguing and draws the greatest attention because of its size and the fact that it lies closest to the biggest trashmonger on the planet, the United States.
The Alguita’s journey last winter was closely followed by the many who had become aware of the floating garbage dump. Crew members kept a ship-to-shore blog, writing: “We know this plastic trash is a problem.... But in order to get the world to pay attention and start making changes, we need to prove it. We need accurate data and real hard numbers, so we can bring this information to governments, industries, and the public and show them just how serious this issue has become.”
Blog responses came from all over the world, from grade-school children to the elderly, scientists to laypeople.
One asked, “Do we have an answer to the question ‘Yeah, it’s gross, but why should I put it high on my list of world problems that need our immediate attention?’?” It is a good question because marine pollution is one of the most underreported stories today. One glaring answer to the question is this: Around 2.5 billion people rely upon fish for at least 20 percent of their animal protein. When fisheries get polluted, so does the food we eat. (See “Ocean Reflux,” page 28.)
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Image courtesy of Algalita Marine Research Foundation
The UNEP reports that today 80 percent of all marine debris that washes ashore—such as trash and toxic matter—originally comes from shore-based activities that could have begun with innocent fun, such as picnics and beach outings and the like. Farther inland, rivers and streams carry trash to the sea. Marah Hardt, a research fellow at the Blue Ocean Institute on Long Island in New York, says most people have no clue about their effect on ocean life because they can’t see it. “The ocean is way out there, they think,” she says. Meanwhile, their garbage disposals, drainpipes, and sewers can lead directly to it. Factories dump. Air pollution seeps. This is how the oceans become contaminated.
Solutions offered by the public range from thoughtful to wacky: “Why couldn’t it be possible to collect the larger pieces of trash by skimming the most polluted concentrations with troll nets and attaching them to helicopters that would then deposit them into the path of the ongoing lava flow of Kilauea to be consumed and incorporated into new rock?” one person asked in a blog comment. Other ideas include vacuuming the sea and converting the plastic into an alternative energy source (plastics are made from petroleum).
“We get about one suggestion a week,” says Anna Cummins, an Alguita crew member and education adviser at Algalita.
Moore says the only solution is to prevent more debris from entering the ocean; it is futile to try to clean out whatever exists there now. And without changing our habits, the garbage patch will only continue to grow.
Alexandra Cousteau, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and the granddaughter of the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau, believes awareness and education are the keys to ocean preservation. She and her brother, Philippe, use the media and speak about their environmental experiences to educate people about the importance of protecting the oceans and freshwater resources. Cousteau reminds me that we are all indelibly linked to the oceans. “We live on a water planet,” she says. “Water is life.” Pollution, therefore, is unacceptable, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, anathema.
The samples of trash and marine life gathered during Alguita’s winter voyage—buckets of plastic, garbage, and algaelike organisms—are still being evaluated and lab tested, and the results will be available this summer. But Moore tells me the major finding, in his mind, was the discovery of the further accumulation of trash outside the garbage patch itself, near the international date line—a higher-density collection of waste making its way to the patch. “You can now make a new hypothesis that all food in the ocean contains plastic,” he says. The evaluation of particle ratios—the measure of plastic to organic matter—inside and outside of the patch may bear that out. So may analysis of seawater for the chemical signature plastic leaves behind.
Meanwhile, Moore has plans to go farther and test new waters sometime this fall or early next year. If he can prove that the travesty of plastic pervasiveness in the ocean is worsening (by tracking the amount of plastic per square mile of ocean, as this last voyage did) and that it has an impact on more of the various types of ocean life, even perhaps on the carbon sequestration process that the oceans offer, then international policy might finally begin to address the issue of trash in our seas. That, anyway, is the hope of all his fieldwork.
I remember sailing miles offshore with Captain Moore and his crew in the days before their trek, taking in the sight of two whales spouting and playing, wondering just how much plastic they had ingested.
It made me think how tragic it is that now when we say “blue ocean,” we may be talking about it not so much in the sense of its color but in the sense that it is sad. And for that we have to take more responsibility.
Visit the Better Planet blog at blogs.discovermagazine.com/betterplanet.
Turn Your Home Into A Power Company
If you’re looking to save money on your electricity bills; earn a few extra dollars, or just make a small contribution to your immediate environment, there is a new project being implemented across the country named One Block Off the Grid. What this does is remove a portion of the expense involved in setting oneself up to power their home with solar energy. There is a catch, though. In order for the group responsible to set up a neighborhood, enough people in your community must be seriously interested in converting their homes to solar contributors.
If all criteria are met and 1BOG is able to set up in your area, the benefits are quite noticeable. The organization purchases in bulk from a wide variety of solar installers. That savings results in a cost drastically lower than if one chose to go at it alone.
The federal government also offers a 30% tax credit against installation costs. States have their own incentives, but they do vary. Consult with dsireusa.org, solarpowerrocks.com, or findsolar.com, to see a list of solar energy rebates or incentives.
http://1bog.org/about-us/