Goats, Sprinklers, Union College

 

  • One example of livestock that uses water: Goats consume: 3 gallons/ 1 day x 365 days/1 year x .0038 tonnes/ 1 gallon= 4.161 tonnes/ year per goat
  • If a typical gardener uses a sprinkler gushing 12,240 gallons/ 1 monthly x .0038 tonnes/ 1 gallon x 1 year / 12 months= the Gardner will use 3.876 tonnes / year 
  • Water waste could be reduced by doing laundry more infrequently (each load requires about 12.5-19.6 gallons per load depending on the washer and according to prudentreviews.com), adding timers to sprinkler systems (where according to bigsprinkler.com it takes 27,000 gallons to irrigate 1 acre of land) and especially by eating less beef which according to denverwater.org requires 1,847 gallons of water to produce.
  • Bottled water is a matter of convenience and one of appealing marketing. Our susceptibility to innovative marketing techniques makes us prone to consuming water-on-the-go. To estimate the student consumption of bottled water, assuming no student is using the hydration stations and only acquiring water from bottled water the following “ideal” situation may arise:
  • There are 2050 students at Union, 47% women, 53% men
  • 3.7 L/day per man x 1 gallon/3.785 L x 365 days/year = 356.80317 gallons per year per man
  • 1086 men at Union
  • Approx. 387,488.243 gallons per year per Union men
  • 2.7 L/day per woman x 1 gallon/3.785 L x 365 days/year = 260.369881 gallons per year per woman
  • 964 women at Union
  • Approx. 250,996.565 gallons per year per Union women ideally
  • It takes one liter of oil to prod. one bottle of water, 

Take the Distance: 7,933 mi xWeight: 2916.247 tons x 161.8g of Co2/1 ton x 1 mi = 3743176249.57 g of Co2 it takes to ship in a 747 Boeing, with 2 passengers at roughly 197 lbs, with roughly 650,000 gallons of water to hydrate Union College.

Other works not already cited:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92222327