Daily Archives: September 16, 2018

Water Waste

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According to Livescience, 70% of the world’s freshwater supply is used for agricultural purposes, such as farms and lawns. This poses a problem for the environment because when fields are watered, the excess water flows into nearby streams or rivers. This can pollute bodies of water because the runoff is filled with fertilizers and other toxins that may be harmful to marine life. Also, some crops require more water than others. For example, cotton needs a lot more water to survive than potatoes do.

As we discussed in class, another source that requires a lot of water is the toilet. Everytime you flush, you are using between 1.6 gallons and 4 gallons of water. After this water is used, it may be treated and sanitized so it can be used in other ways, such as for watering plants.

Another common way that people waste water is through leaking and malfunctioning equipment. According to the Washington Post, Americans waste 1 trillion gallons of water each year, or 40 million swimming pools, due to leaky faucets and broken sprinkler systems. Not only is this wasteful and harmful to the environment, but it is extremely expensive for homeowners.

One way to reduce the amount of water waste in the world is to replace older toilets with more efficient ones. Also, landowners and farmers should replace their irrigation systems with sprinklers, which produce less runoff. Additionally, people should be wary of potential leaks in their faucets in order to avoid wasting any water.

 

How much water is in a glass of wine?

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It takes 872 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of wine. Scaled down, it takes about 34 gallons of water for a 5 fluid ounces of wine, according to Huffington Post. But how is this even possible? How come it takes so much water to make wine? What is drought-stricken California doing to conserve water while remaining one of the largest winemaking regions in the world? The water consumption required to cultivate wine includes water used on the vines, water used in the winery and rainwater (crops consume the rainwater). The grapes for the wine require constant irrigation especially in drought-stricken areas such as California and parts of the Mediterranean region. It is important to note that wine grapes require about one-third of the amount of water used to grow almonds, so I guess we should all drink less almond milk and more wine? In the winery, the water use is mostly focused on sanitation. The barrels, tanks, presses and crushers are cleaned and disinfected after every. single. use. Even if the the equipment will be used to make the same type of wine. Wineries are, however, working to use less water. Many wineries, especially in France where crop irrigation is legally regimented, have converted to drip irrigation and today’s advanced technology allows for hoses that can sense when to turn off. Many wineries have adopted onsite water treatment systems so all that water used to clean the equipment can be recycled at the winery. I think it’s safe to say that wine will continue to be consumed all around the world but sustainable technologies and practices must be adopted in order to drink wine guilt free.

Drip Irrigation on a Spanish vineyard. Photo found on: https://vinotic.com/noticias/el-vinedo-de-regadio-en-espana-supone-el-386-de-la-superficie-total-n2515.html

Alarmingly High Pollution Rate From Plastic Water Bottles

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Reusable water bottles are a brilliant idea that are at everyone’s disposal but are an amenity that most people have not yet utilized or don’t utilize enough. Plastic water bottles are still bought and consumed consistently by everyone, especially here at Union College. The book store is easily accessible for drinks, bottled water I imagine being one of the most frequent purchases considering the amount of times that I have seen the massive Saratoga water bottles busting out of student’s backpacks. While its easy and quick to buy bottled water, it’s truly an unnecessary purchase and frankly a waste of money.

According to a Huffington Post article about the detrimental affects of plastic water bottles, 1500 water bottles are consumed per second tallying up to 50 billion water bottles every year world wide. From those 50 billion, the United States consumes 30 meaning that we are largely at fault for most of the plastic pollutants that end up floating around in large bodies of water (every square mile of ocean has more than 46,000 pieces of plastic), littered bottles sitting on the side of the road and for the landfills dumped with plastic that should have been recycled. All plastic bottles are made of polyethylene and terephthalate which do not biodegrade but rather photodegrade meaning they disintegrate in small little fragments over the course of a very long time. It takes centuries for water bottles to get to those tiny fragments and when they do they release toxins. What’s more is that while recycling is an encouraged option, 80% of plastic bottles go into landfills meaning that rather than making use of the plastic by recycling it, the bottles sit for centuries in a hole polluting the environment. Our health is at risk too from drinking out of the plastic which in fact can cause reproductive issues and can lead to cancer considering that after only 10 weeks of shelf life, the chemicals from the bottles have leaked into the water. It is imperative to reuse water bottles, recycle and drink from the tap to preserve our future earth.

Check out the cleanliness of your tap water in your area on this website to assure yourself that it is clean!

Eco-Friendly Landscaping

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WaterSense, a voluntary public-private partnership program sponsored by the EPA, seeks to help homeowners and businesses improve water efficiency and reduce their costs by promoting efficient irrigation technologies. According to research by WaterSense, about thirty percent of water used daily by the average American family is devoted to outdoor uses. This water is used for a variety of tasks, such as watering lawns and gardens, washing automobiles, maintaining swimming pools, and cleaning sidewalks and driveways. This accounts for almost one-third of residential water use nationwide, which is estimated to be more than seven-billion gallons of water per day, or 2,555-billions gallons of water annually.

However, not all this water is used efficiently. More than 50% of commercial and residential irrigation water is wasted through evaporation, run off, and useless over-watering. An inefficient irrigation system can waste an immense amount of water and money every month. There are certain ways to reduce the water wasted through landscaping needs. For example, a family could use a weather-based irrigation scheduler/controller. On a moderate sized yard, this can reduce a household’s outdoor water use by about 15 percent, saving up to 37 gallons of water every day because it would provide the right amount of water to your plants automatically. Another way to save water through landscaping is creating a rain garden. A rain garden transforms your yard to collect and drain rainwater in a way where it keeps the ground wet during hot weather. Families can also invest in a rain barrel to keep plants watered. Additionally, using the drip irrigation system is a way to ensure that water used on plants/crops goes directly to the rooms of the plants and nothing is lost to evaporation or run off.

As you can see there are easy ways families can preserve their beautiful landscape while conserving water and helping the environment.

 

Sources:

WaterSense Fact Sheet

Water, Use It Wisely: “CO-FRIENDLY LANDSCAPING TIPS TO HELP YOU SAVE WATER”