Why is water conservation important? By Anthony Nota and Jo Zugic

As I sit here sipping on a glass of New York City tap water, I find it interesting to know where the water comes from every time I turn on the tap and fill up my glass. The rumour going around is that New York City has “the best tap water”, however I never knew how accurate that claim was considering New Yorkers like to be “the best” at everything. After visiting the Waterkeeper Alliance headquarters and being educated by executive director Marc Yaggi on the topic of all things water, in conjunction with reading the chapter on water from Sustainability Principles and Practices, I now know that New York City does in fact have some of the best public water systems in the world! Many miles up in the Catskill Mountains, there are nineteen protected reservoirs that flow to the five boroughs and provide us with good quality drinkable water. In fact, despite being unfiltered, the New York City water system is so clean that it only has to be inspected every ten years compared to most other U.S. cities that have EPA mandated inspections every five years.

It is a great thing that New Yorkers have access to such high quality water, however fresh water it is still a struggle for many other regions of the world.

Whether it be lack of water due to environmental issues, or water that is so polluted it is no longer suitable for human consumption, there is an increasing concern regarding the conservation of H2O worldwide. The textbook shines some light on ways that water conservation can be practiced.

Global climate change has contributed to the world’s water crisis, with water quantity and quality being the biggest problems. If nothing changes by 2025 1.8 billion people will live in water-scarce areas and 2/3 of the world’s population will live in areas where water availability is low.

Some examples of conserving water include installing low-flow plumbing fixtures, repairing leaks, recycling water from cooling systems, or implementing more efficient landscape irrigation practices. It even boils down to the individual consumer reusing or recycling products which reduces consumption of the virtual water embedded in new consumer goods such as fashion. To manufacture a single cotton t-shirt about three years worth of drinking water are required in the process, which is equivalent to 715 gallons. Only 2.5% of the Earth’s water is freshwater and only 0.3% is accessible to humans. So while we may be a ‘blue planet’, usable water is incredibly scarce in comparison.

When it comes to single use plastic, only 10% is recycled, 18% is incinerated (which releases toxic chemicals into the air), 40% ends up in landfills and 32% ends up in oceans. 8 million tonnes of single used plastics ended up in the ocean last year alone. A scary statistics is that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by weight. In order to use less plastics we need more education, to increase recycling efforts and ban on single use plastic. Countries such as Australia have already started banning single use plastic bags.

Marc also stressed the mission of Waterkeeper Alliance, “United as one powerful force, Waterkeeper Alliance fights for every community's right to drinkable, fishable, swimmable water” (Waterkeeper Alliance, 2018). By teaming up with Bionic, who use ocean plastics and turn them into to high quality polymer/yarn, and who don’t make products for single use, Waterkeeper Alliance and Bionic are helping fashion brands make a difference in water conservation. Brands such as G-Star, Ralph Lauren and Sparry are leading the way in the fashion world.