What's a Water Footprint?

Water is becoming the new standard of luxury. Without water absolutely nothing on this planet could exist. Water is becoming so scarce that we are now calculating every item's water footprint. What is a water footprint? The water footprint works on the same basis as the carbon footprint; but, measures the amount of water used in any activity.

I foresee a time when items that have a large water footprint will be produced on a limited basis only. This will have to be done simply because we won't have the water anymore to go on mass producing items and then discarding them without thought to the energy and/or resources that went into producing them.

This water footprint includes all water used during the process including water needed for drinking, watering, cleaning, processing, distilling, or anything else. If water is used anywhere in the cycle, it is calculated in the water footprint.

I thought it would be fun to list a few of them:

• beef: 15,500 litres of water for 1 kg
• coffee: 140 litres for a 125 ml cup
• tea: 30 litres for a 125 ml cup
• wine: 120 litres for a 125 ml glass
• lamb: 6,100 litres for 1 kg
• pork: 4,800 litres for 1 kg
• chicken: 3,900 for 1 kg
• wheat: 1,300 litres for 1 kg
• cheese: 5,000 litres for 1 kg
• rice: 3,400 litres 1 kg
• sugar cane: 1,500 litres for 1 kg
• corn (maize): 900 litres for 1 kg
• chicken egg: 200 litre for 60 g egg
• bread slice: 40 litres per slice

Water is becoming such a potentially explosive issue, I will be doing further blogs on it because I can see wars being fought over the ever-diminishing supply of drinkable water.

In the meantime, drink your 8 glasses a day while it is still fresh, pure and free.