Are we throwing away fresh water? How much fresh water is going to the landfills?
By João Filipe Galvão de Carvalho
Several authors have worked and came forward with studies and papers on water use, depletion and virtual water. However little to nothing has been done to study how much water is throwed away and wasted on a daily basis in kitchens/households/offices around the world.
If we take an espresso capsule as an example, its weight after use is far greater than the more or less 10 grams we start with, due to the among of water content left in the capsule. Most users will throw the capsule away without let the water pour out. The same applies to frozen food and ice-cream containers, beverage cartons, diapers, etc.
Almost all food items contain water in their making in one form or another.
Because recycling habits and procedures vary wildly, one can easily imagine that several tons of water a day will end up in landfills, trapped inside containers unable to escape either by evaporation or by drainage. On top of that, today’s landfills are, from the most part watertight and compacted, further preventing water from reentering the natural water cycle.
So, how much water is wasted, in average, in this way? And how can be done to prevent it?
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sewage recycling is a critical activity, I think primarily for the environmental damage caused by untreated sewage when it is discharged into the ocean. The fresh water cycle gets replenished each round by rain drawn from ocean. Drought is disruption of the fresh water in play in a given location. Some or all of this could be inaccurate.
Chris Hibbs · 10 Jul, 2015