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by Cornelius Grey
WATER: it covers 70.9% of the Earth's surface, all known life forms need it and our bodies are made up of 55% to 78% of it.
Friday October 15th is Blog ACTION Day and this year iCUBED.us wants YOU to join up with the thousands of bloggers in over 100 countries to uniformly blog about WATER on Friday. If you don't have your own established blog, you can go to the BLOG ACTION DAY website to sign a petition supporting the UN’s efforts to bring clean, safe water to millions globally, and also contribute to help build water wells in developing countries. Learn more at: http://blog.blogactionday.org/
A 2006 United Nations report stated that "there is enough water for everyone", but that access is hampered by mismanagement and corruption. There are frequent disputes between countries and communities over rights to this substance and a lack of water can sometimes lead to war.
Some 40% of the world's population currently has insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR, 2003) predicts that in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone will decrease by 30%.
Most readers will certainly have access to clean water and yet many will regularly drink bottled water. In our daily lives, alongside cutting down or cutting out the use of plastic bags, moving away from consuming commercially bottled water could have a tremendous POSITIVE impact on the environment. Around 90 percent of the price of your bottled water goes towards the bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing, other expenses and profit. Bottled water may be sometimes be sourced from a spring but often it may be just treated tap water.
BOTTLED WATER = PLASTIC WASTE
Every year about 2.7 million tons of plastic are used to bottle water. Usually polyethylene terepthalate (PET), produced from crude oil, is used for these bottles. In the US alone, 1.5 million barrels of oil (enough to power about 100,000 cars for a year) are needed annually to manufacture these bottles.
And almost 90 percent of water bottles are not recycled. PET bottles can take up to 1,000 years to degrade, and when they do, they can leak harmful chemicals into the ground.
Most plastic bottles are shipped overseas for recycling in countries like China so even more energy is used for transportation. And even a "recycled" plastic bottle has far more virgin plastic in it than recycled plastic.
In Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia, the town has outlawed bottled water and it cannot be sold or given away. Bundanoon now has public drinking fountains and filtered water dispensers where people can fill up reusable water bottles. In the US this April, citizens in Concord, Massachusetts voted to ban the selling of bottled water. And back in 2007, San Francisco banned city agencies and departments from purchasing bottled water.
Why not follow the example of the Bundanoon and Concord residents and buy your own reusable water bottle and a home filtration system (if you are concerned about the purity of tap water)? It’s an easy way to save money and also save the environment.
With your own reusable water bottle you may also be helping your health. If you heat a PET bottle, chemicals such as phthalates could go into the water. Studies on rodents have shown that ingesting phthalates can lead to serious health problems and internal organ damage. So choose a phthalate-free bottle or a sturdy metal one.
WATER FACTS FROM THE BLOG ACTION DAY WEBSITE:
1. Unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation kills more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Unclean drinking water causes 42,000 deaths each week.
2. More people have access to a cell phone than to a toilet. Today, 2.5 billion people lack access to toilets. This means that sewage spills into rivers and streams, contaminating drinking water and causing disease.
3. Every day, women and children in Africa walk a combined total of 109 million hours to get water.
4. It takes 6.3 gallons of water to produce just one hamburger.
5. The average American uses 159 gallons of water every day – more than 15 times the average person in the developing world.
******Here's a sincere appeal from the BLOG ACTION DAY people******
Hey Blog Action Day bloggers,
I wanted to share some really exciting news: we just received confirmation that the White House and the UK Foreign Office will both be joining us in blogging about water on Blog Action Day this Friday.
With more influential blogs set to confirm their participation in the next few days, Blog Action Day 2010 is shaping up to be the biggest single day of action about clean water on record. But to make sure this happens, we need your help.
Every year, after Blog Action Day is over, we get countless emails from bloggers saying "I wish I had known about this day beforehand!” While there's nothing we can do about those emails after October 15th, we have four days left to get the word out.
So, if you have a friend or family member who blogs, or are part of a blogging community, we need your help in spreading the word about Blog Action Day. It doesn't matter how large or small a blog is or what topics it covers – we want everyone involved.
You can help spread the word three ways:
1. Send an email to friends: At the end of this email, we've included a sample letter you can send out to your blogging friends and family members letting them know about Blog Action Day.
2. Post to a blogger forum or listserv: If you're part of a blogging community, listserv or forum with lots of bloggers, you can use the same information below to encourage everyone to participate.
3. Write an early blog post: In addition to posting on Blog Action Day this Friday, consider writing an announcement post earlier in the week letting the readers of your blog know about Blog Action Day. Many of your readers are likely to have their own blogs, and this will give them time to register before the big day.
If you have any questions or additional suggestions of your own, please reply to this email and let us know.
Thank you for your continued commitment and support – Blog Action Day would not be possible without you.
Thanks again,
Maria & the Blog Action Day team
P.S. A number of bloggers have asked whether or not they would have to re-register if they blogged last year. The answer is yes: your Blog Action Day registration doesn't carry over so you will have to re-register your blog. But the good news is it takes less than 60 seconds!
"Hey,
I wanted to let you know about an important online event I'm taking part in on October 15th, called Blog Action Day. Each year bloggers from more than 100 countries come together and blog about a single important issue, and this year's topic is clean water. The event includes thousands of blogs - including the White House blog and The Official Google Blog - and they're looking for as many blogs to participate as possible, regardless of their size and focus.
I hope you'll think about joining me for this event. If you want more information, check out the Blog Action Day site at http://blogactionday.change.org/.
Hope to see your post on the 15th!"
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