Hidden Water Behind Everyday Products

by - julho 31, 2019

The most of people doesn't know about the millions of gallons of virtual water that go into making the consumer goods they consume everyday. Manufacturing materials like paper, plastic, metal and fabric takes water, ands a lot of it. 
To calculate this, is required watch every step in the production processes for many different raw materials and finished products.
Then, the water footprint of a product is calculated by adding up all of the water required for each step of the production process.

Below, it is a list of the consume goods that have the biggest water footprint:
  1. Chocolate (1kg) - 24 000 Liters
  2. Beef (1kg) - 15 500 Liters
  3. Cheese (1kg) - 5 000 Liters
  4. Pork (1kg) - 4 800 Liters
  5. Olives (1kg) - 4 400 Liters
  6. Chicken (1kg) - 3 900 Liters
  7. Rice (1kg) - 3400 Liters 
Analysing in deep the production of beef, and the reason behind so many water is spend, it's mainly because of the production of the food for the animals. It takes an average of three years before the animal can be slaughtered to produce 200 pounds of boneless meat. In this period, the animal consumes 1 300 pounds of grain (wheat, oats, barley, corn, peas, soy flour, and other grains), 7,200 pounds of fiber (pasture, straw), 24 cubic meters of drinking water and 7 meters cubic meters of water for other care. Than, to produce 1 pound of boneless meat, we use about 6.5 pounds of grain, 36 pounds of fiber and 155 liters of water. In addition, feed production requires an average of 15 300 liters of water. This give us the total o 15 500 liters!
 In this method, we do not include the volume of polluted water that may originate from the use of fertilizer to produce the ratio or excess manure that reaches the water system.

It is impossible to make a water footprint of zero because it takes water to make just about everything we choose to buy, eat, use and throw away, but, individual we can take daily decisions that might seem small, but cumulatively can have a great impact.

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