Martin Van Dore: It is part of who we are—fresh, clean and abundant. It is easy for Canadians to think that we have unlimited supply of water. But according to a recent environment candidate report, we face numerous threats to our fresh water. Canadians are too confident in our long term water supply, and second only to Americans on the list of the world’s top water wasters.
Now, a new water conservation campaign, Go Blue and website goblue.org have been initiated by Unilever. Go Blue challenges us to change our water wasting habits in the kitchen bathroom laundry and garden to ensure that we have an abundant supply for now and the future.
Stacey Smith is meeting that challenge. She is the Director of Green Smith, an environmental consulting company and she aims to cut her water use in half.
Stacey Smith: As a family, we have decided to cut our shower time in half, so if you take an average shower of 15 minutes now, try to cut it down to seven or eight minutes. Or in our family, we are trying to get it down to three or four minutes.
A family of three or four over a year can save up to 1200 bath tubs full of water just by cutting shower time. We are changing all of our shower heads to low-flow shower heads, and with that move alone, we are saving enough water within year to fill a swimming pool.
Martin Van Dore: GoBlue.org also suggests you turn off the tap while brushing. The conservation group Zero Footprint points out that leaving the tap running is waste about eight liters of water a minute. Zero Footprints also says that if every Canadian household use a low-flush toilet, we would save about 25,000 Olympic swimming pools of water. And a leaky tap drips away 10,000 liters of water a year.
So how much water can you save in your home? Deborah Kaplan of Zero Footprints says that there is an easy way to find out.
Deborah Kaplan: Canadians can log on to goblue.org. There, they can measure their water footprint using zero footprints’ calculator. They can, for the first time, understand what their water impacts are by looking at their usage throughout the home based on their kitchen, washroom, laundry room and lawn. Then you can use Go Blue.org to find tips and hints on how to reduce their water footprints and use the zero footprints’ calculator to track their success through time.
Martin Van Dore: GoBlue.org encourages us to be mindful of our personal water use showing us how simple changes can reduce demand in our fresh water resources, helping ensure we have enough fresh water for the future. Martin Van Dore reporting.
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