H20
What is something you've recently learned about water or water use?
posted by UVM Eco-Reps Program Coordinator @ 6:45 PM
What is something you've recently learned about water or water use?
posted by UVM Eco-Reps Program Coordinator @ 6:45 PM
23 Comments:
I recently did a speech on bottled water to persuade students to ban it on campus. I learned a lot from my research. First, SGA passed a resolution supporting a ban on bottled water that solidified student opinion on the issue, which is great - BUT doesn't ensure any action will be taken. Our best chance for change is when the Coke contract expires (which is soon) and showing the university a continued disinterest in bottled water by not buying it or protesting that is the best way. we need to show the administration that the dislike of bottled water isn't just a fad! I also learned that water shortages have been a problem in the Burlington area recently which was surprising because I only picture water shortages being in drier climates.
I recently learned that the Davis Center sells 800 bottles of water a week. I would love to learn more about what people's reasons are behind this action beyond the convenience factor. A guest speaker of someone from VSTEP would be interesting.
-Livy
I recently learned that some countries have been using desalination to get their water. Israel has the largest desalination plant in the world. When I learned this in class I was really surprised because I thought no one had resorted to desalination.
That's really interesting about banning bottled water. Hopefully as a student body, we can make it unprofitable to keep putting those bottles on the shelves.
I didn't know Burlington was experiencing problems with water. All the city drinking water comes from Lake Champlain. We're very lucky to have such a source, unfortunately places such as California and the Midwest are experiencing the threat of privatized water.
anywho... I don't always agree with Annie Lenoard, but this video is decent. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011036.html
I'm sincerely just worried for all the places where clean tap isn't available, where the aquifers are full up with RX chemicals. Scariest of all is the projected fate of the Ogalalla aquifer. (http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/issues/society/ogallala/ogallala.html)
The article is long, but in summation the aquifer that supplies so much of our agricultural sector with irrigation is grossly overdrawn and receding.
On the other hand, reading Bill Mollison's Permaculture designers manual gives a lot of ideas about sensible irrigation that I hope the midwest can learn from.
I learned that residential irrigation can account for 40% of domestic water consumption in a given municipality. Rain barrels not only store water, they help decrease demand during the summer months. This is an easy way to reduce water consumption and use something free from nature.
Natalie
I have been noticing in my classes recently that while the majority of students carry reusable water bottles, there are still many who seem to be purchasing plastic bottles. I am curious as to their reasoning. I personally find it more convenient to use a reusable bottle and be able to fill it anywhere. I have also been noticing that there have been many shows/events etc. recently bringing attention to the water crisis in the world, which I think is necessary and amazing that many celebrities and influential people are trying to bring attention to these important issues.
-Olivia McGee
Something new that I learned about water came from the Mother Jones website. Apparently, although the Dasani (Coca Cola) bottling plant in Kerala India was closed because it would not provide drinking water to those people whose wells it had dried up and because it wasn't using proper sanitation, it was reopened the year following its closure. Without taking any of the government mandated actions. I had known Dasani pumped water out of India, and that a plant had been shut down, but it was surprising to me to find out that it was allowed to reopen with such ease.
Something that I have very recently extrapolated about water is that the average male spends about five months of his life shaving, and so if he's using one gallon of water every minute, then theoretically the average male uses 44,640 gallons of water on this (since 7/12 months have 31 days, I did 1*60*24*31). Unfortunately, I got the fact about 5 months from a Snapple lid, so I don't know how reliable that is, and while I should figure out how much water would be used in a 30-day and 28/29-day month an then weight and average the results, I still think this is a pretty good approximation for the amount of water waster per person over a lifetime.
The moral of the story: Don't leave the water running while you shave.
It wasn't recently that I learned this but, I did learn last semester that the sinks in the rooms in Greenhouse (and probably Honors College as well) are low pressure in order to save water. I thought this was an awesome way to save some water throughout the building. Especially because I feel like more water must be used since there are sinks in each room/suite. I've also been sharing the fact that Caleb shared about how 1 cigarette butt contaminates a liter of water. Most people seem very concerned by this and I've gotten several people to start disposing of them properly!
-Alyssa
While reading the water chapter, the most interesting thing that I learned was that out of the .3% of water on earth that is usable by humans, most of it comes from ground water, a little comes from fresh water lakes and a tiny bit comes from rivers. I thought that this was so interesting because when I go to get water out of the faucet or out of the water fountain, I don't think about where that water is coming from. I know that Burlington gets its water from Lake Champlain, but when I go back home to Denver, I have no idea where my water is coming from. I think it would be cool to try and figure that out, actually. Sources of water is not something that people think about everyday, even if they are thinking about the small amount of drinking water available.
One thing I recently learned about water use and consumption at UVM is that even though there is a big movement by the students to ban bottled water sales on campus, bottled water is still the highest sold product. Since I have been keeping an out out for people using water bottles, I have noticed more and more students using them. However, there is still a large amount of students buying water, which just doesnt make sense to me. Also,I think many Americans take for granted our access to water.We often dont think about where our water comes from, and how little of the fresh water that is drinkable is actually available to humans.
I am taking religion and ecology course this semester. We often talk about water as the obcject of worship and symbol of purification. It might be interesting to see water not only as a natural resource, but also as a cultural/religious item.
However, pollution of rivers can be seen all over the world. We recently talk about pollution in Yamuna River in India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamuna#Pollution
Since the live of people there is highly depended on the river, pollution causes health problems etc. However, the good thing is that a movement towards cleaning the river has started a few years ago.
It's interesting how important water is in our life.
-Kazuha
In the water chapter on the eco-reps blog, I found the "Bottled Water Anyone?" facts to be really interesting. Although there are many students at UVM who still purchase and drink bottled water, that number is nowhere near the 50% of the University of California at Santa Barbara students who rarely or never drink tap water! I also knew that the guidelines for tap water were stricter than for bottled water, but I didn't know that 20 more contaminants are regulated in tap water than bottled water (I wonder if that's different outside of California)
-Laura D.
What I recently learned about water came from the water taste test we conducted last week. I was very surprised to find that students had trouble identifying the water samples as bottled, tap, or filtered water. Moreover, the majority of people preferred tap or filtered water, and (while I was there) only one person preferred bottled! It is important to note that the tap and filtered water was colder than the bottled, which might have skewed the results. But I realized that this still suggests that people would be just as happy to drink tap or filtered water, because what matters is not so much the taste of the water, but rather the temperature! It would be really great to get this information out to the student body, to get people to rethink the unnecessary purchase of bottled water!
-Anya Gedrath-Smith
Something that I learned is on the topic of water access inequality around the world and how simple these injustices can be balanced. I talked to a friend whose mother runs and orphanage/school in Port au Prince, Haiti, and she is currently working on a project to supply local families with clean water, since currently most recieve theirs from rain water flowing from street drainpipes and gutters...aparently there are water filters that cost only $30 and will provide a half dozen families with sanitary water for up to 5 years! Think about the last time you spent $30...kind of crazy right?
I learned from the water taste test that students at UVM like tap water much more than bottled water. During the taste test someone brought up a good point that many bikers need smaller water bottles to ride with and reusable bottles are often too big to bring along on biking trips. It would be interesting to see if more reusable bottles could be marketed towards bikers or cyclists and if it would increase their general use.
I’m taking a class in sustainable water management and recently we just watched a movie called “Flow”. While this was a completely depressing movie, I did learn a ton about world water issues. For instance they said that it would cost something like 3 billion for everyone in the world to have clean water. BUT almost twice that is spent a year on bottled water. How crazy.
-Cassie McGoldrick
I just came across the latest issue of National Geographic which is all about water. Everyone should definitely check it out either in print or online: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/. I learned so much i don't even know where to start but here are a few shocking things. Almost 200 gallons of water daily are needed to support the average American's lifestyle, which is at least twice the global average and almost 4 times the average of Sub-Saharan Africans. In addition, the average woman in developing countries must walk four miles a day to collect water, and carries about 44 pounds on her head on average. At least 1.1 billion people worldwide are without access to a safe water source. About 90% of waste-water in developing countries is discharged into water sources without any sort of treatment. These are just a few very scary facts that make me wish there was some way to get through to people, particularly students at UVM, the extreme gravity of the issue of water conservation issue.
I recently did a project on bottled water on campus, and met with Mikayla McDonald of VSTEP to get more information. As others have said, although SGA passed a resolution banning bottled water on campus, Fogel and the administration vetoed it because of their current contract with Coca-Cola, which is up for renewal in 2011. Mikayla said that next year the Office of Sustainability in conjunction with members of VSTEP and SGA will be working hard to rewrite the Coke contract so that bottled water is no longer a product that UVM must sell. So everyone should definitely be on the lookout for more info on that and when it begins to happen we should get as many involved to try and accomplish the agenda of banning bottled water.
One more thing--hopefully there will be another BYOB on Earth Day. I think Eco-Reps should help out again this time; it was a great success last semester.
After helping out with the water taste test in the Davis Centre last week I learned that many people prefer tap water to bottled and filtered. I was really surprised to learn how much water can be saved by cutting down shower time by just a few minutes, or fixing a leaky sink, or turning off the water while brushing your teeth. These solutions seem so simple, but is posting a sign enough to make a change? I feel like some people are almost immune to the same old data that is thrown at them on a regular basis. I think something more drastic, like a demonstration of how much water could be saved may be more effective. But I sincerely hope that what we are doing, spreading the word is making a difference!
Alayna Howard
Others have mentioned this already, but I'm shocked at how much bottled water is sold on campus every day, in spite of efforts from VSTEP. While it still astounds me that people would purchase so much bottled water, I'm even more surprised that UVM is not doing more to stop this from the administrative level- that is, why the school doesn't ban bottled water. I know I've signed petitions upon petitions about this issue with VSTEP but I'm not sure what action has been taken, if any, from the administrative level. I agree with Livy about having a representative from VSTEP come speak to us. Unfortunately, both of the presidents are abroad right now and the organization is suffering from that, but even next fall would be great.
Rachel Koh
In regards to water usage, I recently learned that a vast quantity of everyday people are unaware that the regulations for tap water are far stricter than bottled water.
Upon informing many of my friends of this news, they were in shock. I then preceded to explain that tap water is much safer to consume in comparison to manufactured "bottled" water which is basically expensive tap water.. or worse.
-anne chan.
I recently learned why some people buy bottled water. This might already seem apparent- but it wasn't to me. I always thought the simple fact that bottled water is so expensive made it unappealing, but not to everybody. A few weeks ago I finally asked my friend why she buys bottled water in bulk. She said that she doesn't mind paying a little extra money for the specific taste (of Smart Water) that she has become accustomed to. I told her that this taste likely came from salts and other additives that aren't necessarily good for the health, despite what the bottle might say. She was skeptical and insisted that the taste was important to her. I have to get her to try filtered tap water...
This encounter revealed, once again, how not everyone thinks in the same ways.
I learned that the sinks have pressure gages in them to conserve water here. I did not know that before, very cool! also, my roommate works at cat pause in davis center and bottles water is their biggest seller. They lost alot of money the day the davis center did not sell bottled water. I would want to know why people want to spend so much on bottled water when there is a free bottle refill station right next to cat pause.
Zoe Hoffman
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