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March 11, 2007
Water conservation
I just found this little statistical gem in Becker's recent article on conserving water effectively:
Many discussions of water conservation create the impression that households are large and inefficient users of clean water for drinking, eating, bathing, and toilet flushing. That is a myth. About 40 per cent of all the freshwater use in the United States is for irrigating land for agriculture, another 40 percent is used to produce power, and only 8 percent is used for domestic use; these percentages are similar in other countries. Moreover, about a third of all the water used by households in rich countries goes to water lawns and for other out door purposes, so probably no more than about 5 per cent of the total demand for water is for personal use.
Think about that the next time you have to flush twice.
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