Drinking water: 6 surprising facts | BRIGITTE.de

Drinking water
6 surprising facts

© Tatevosian Yana / Shutterstock

We meet it almost everywhere – and yet we know about our water much too little. Therefore: six facts about precious water

Away from the highway, back to nature

Hard to believe, but true: for centuries it has been customary to literally straighten rivers like the Rhine, because a “straight” flowing body of water can be used as a highway for passenger and, above all, cargo ships. In other words: the straighter the stream, the more goods can be shipped on it. And more goods mean more money. Due to the climate crisis and not least the flood disaster in summer 2021, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need the river bends and floodplains – because they protect us from flooding in heavy rain by slowing down raging rivers that allow water to seep into the ground. These facts finally seem to have arrived: According to the Federal Environment Agency, the first cities, associations and municipalities are now starting to make bodies of water more natural again. They are virtually reducing the rivers by creating artificial bays along them or, quite simply, placing flow-directing sturgeon stones. True to the motto: nature will have already thought about all the bends.

Mega city is becoming a swimming city

Speaking of natural water: Because after hot summers the question often arises whether Germany is also threatened with a shortage of groundwater, the all-clear can at least be given here – we only use 13 percent of our groundwater in this country every year. Now comes the but: the way we build our cities is actually becoming more and more of a problem here. Houses, streets, squares, gravel gardens – the floors are literally concreted over. As a result, the rain cannot seep into the earth, but flows directly into the sewer system. Ergo: less groundwater. That is why researchers assume that in future we will be in so-called sponge cities live: Similar to a sponge, green spaces are supposed to suck up rainwater and store it temporarily with the help of underground collecting basins so that it can be used when necessary instead of draining it away via the sewer system. What sounds like urban utopia is already a reality – the world’s largest sponge project is currently being implemented in Berlin-Tegel.

Technology that excites

The situation is very different with drinking water worldwide: just one percent of global waters consist of fresh water. In addition, it is unevenly distributed, which is why, according to the UN, every third person worldwide has no access to drinking water. Desalination of oceans – that would be an idea! In fact, this is exactly what is already being done: in 2019, almost 16,000 desalination plants in 177 countries produced around 95 billion liters of drinking water per day. The salt is filtered out using special evaporation methods, the vapor is cooled and then collected again as a liquid. Israel is a pioneer: around 40 percent of the drinking water there already comes from desalination, by 2050 it should be 70 percent.

The United Arab Emirates have an even more creative solution ready: “Cloud inoculation” is the name of a method from Dubai in which drones use electric shocks to electrically charge delicate drops in the clouds so that they merge and rain down as thick drops. In July it should have actually come to heavy rain. However, it is unclear whether this is natural in the long term

Is there 20,000 liters in a computer?

Back to domestic consumption: we let an average of 125 liters splash through our taps every day for washing, cooking and the like. In fact, that’s not even a full bathtub. Pretty economical, one might think now. Well, that’s just the little toe of our entire water footprint. Because we use most of the water indirectly – we’re talking about so-called virtual water. Specifically: a pack of rice consumes 3400 liters before it is consumed; This includes, for example, the rain on the rice field, the artificial irrigation as well as fertilizers and pesticides, which have to be diluted with liquid. Coffee plants in countries like Colombia or Ethiopia also swallow a lot, so a cup of coffee in our kitchen makes up around 132 liters. A pack of orange juice is around 1000 liters, and a bar of chocolate 1700 and with a computer almost 20,000 liters! And now? Most of them won’t just stop consuming. No, but we can all demand: While the political focus has so far been almost exclusively on the CO2 balance of products and activists are demanding CO2 labeling on our consumer goods, the demands for a water footprint label are also getting louder.

Cotton is also pretty thirsty

The classic: standing at the cash register, rummaging in your handbag, cursing … the fabric bag you’re looking for is hanging on the door handle at home again. Are you buying a new one or would you prefer to grab a plastic bag? In fact, the answer is not as simple as it seems: Even a cotton bag has an average water consumption of 550 liters. A plastic bag, on the other hand, only needs 200 milliliters to manufacture. So would you prefer the plastic part? Please do not. The question should no longer be which tote bag is the most ecological, instead we should take the bag monogamy seriously and simply put something in every single handbag for the next purchase. Ideally, right after reading the article, it takes less than two minutes …

Temperature does something

We now know that cotton bags swallow a lot of water. What is less well known, however, is that at least half of the water balance of a T-shirt is only created after it has been purchased: Around 2700 liters are knocked on the head in the manufacture of a shirt – another 2000 liters are added if the good piece has been washed for around 44 times – and goes through drying sessions that will lie ahead of him for the rest of his life. So at this point a water-saving tip: If you wash at 30 degrees instead of 60, you save half the electricity and half the water. Because the cool water is not only needed in the washing drum, but also to provide electricity in the power plants at the other end of town, to operate turbines or to cool the power plants. Cold washing in the machine means less water in the power plant means win-win for the environment – and also for your wallet, by the way.

Running with us

Water is one of the most valuable, but also one of the world’s most threatened resources. Do we value what we have at all times? The media of the Bertelsmann Content Alliance, to which BRIGITTE magazines also belong, are addressing this question. Under the slogan “Let’s do it! – So that it still works tomorrow”, we focus on the issues of water quality, scarcity and consumption and show how the climate crisis is changing our lives. This contribution is part of our “Let’s tackle it!” Sustainability week. With the combined strength and range of our journalistic offerings, we want to generate maximum attention – and an awareness of the issues relating to all of our water. #PACKENWIRSAN

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21/2021
Brigitte

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