Water Exercise: Water-Use Calculator

Calculating your water usage is an important step to increasing the availability of water for others. (photo source: Sneske@gastronomic Fight Club)

Unilever and Zerofootprint.net have teamed up to come up with a one-minute water calculator. Answer a few questions and you'll know how much water a year you are using per year. You can also see what activities are your biggest "water guzzlers" and what to do about them.

I almost highlighted this as a technology, as I think that the only way to increase availability of water resources in other parts is to decrease their use in water guzzling nations like the United States, Canada, and Europe. And anything that makes us aware of our wastage works for me.

What few people realize is that there is only a finite amount of water (and drinking water) on this earth. With our continuous wastage and pollution, this precious resource is slowly ebbing away. Our hogging of water is taking away water from other areas, ones that are far more desperate than us, and where a liter of water means the difference between life and death.

Also, once you are done calculating your water usage, keep in mind that the World Health Organization (WHO) mandates a minimum of 20L (5.29 gal) of water per person per day, which means about 7300L (1931 gallons) per person per year. The reality at the moment is that most of the poor in the developing world live on far less than that.