Water is a necessity for us humans along with planet Earth. Humans can go much longer without food as they can without water. It is interesting to think that a lot of the food that we consume could not possibly be produced without water. For example, think of crops that need water into order to grow. Or, all of the water that livestock drinks that we eventually consume such as pigs. This idea alone shows how important water is in its comparison to food consumption.

Consider the following, “There is the same amount of water on Earth as there was when the Earth was formed” (epa.gov). Furthermore, “Nearly 97% of the world’s water is salty or otherwise undrinkable. Another 2% is locked in ice caps and glaciers. That leaves just 1% for all of humanity’s needs — all its agricultural, residential, manufacturing, community, and personal needs” (epa.gov). This idea is really hard for me to wrap my head around. I think about how much water I myself personally use on the daily. Then, I think about how many humans are on this Earth and how much water is used for humanity’s needs by the whole planet. This alone proves how much water is on this Earth. I find this fact so interesting seeing how human production as well as global warming has affected our water usage. In my opinion, bottled water is so popular because of the convenience of it. Consider, reusable water bottles have to be constantly washed and sometimes they are a bit pricey. Bottled water is convenient as once you finish the water, you can just throw away or recycle the bottle. If I had to estimate the bottle water consumption on Union College’s campus, I would estimate that around 50% of Union’s students drink bottled water opposed to water from the tap. Furthermore, I would average that of the 50% of bottled water drinkers, they drink at least 2 bottles of water a day. Based on Union College’s enrollment being around 2,300 students, 65% of that is 1150, multiplying that by 2, my estimate is that Union College consumes around 2,300 bottles of water per day.

Work Cited: https://www3.epa.gov/safewater/kids/waterfactsoflife.html