How Social Media, Bottled Water Contribute to Gallons of Water Wastage

We have talked extensively about how some of your home appliances, faulty faucets or even the simplest of kitchen tasks can lead to huge wastage of water. But there are several other routines that you may be part of which are responsible for a lot of water wastage but are rarely spoken about as being the culprits of the water crisis. Here’s a look:

Clothing Companies

Avoid the temptation to go on a shopping spree the next time you see a ‘sale’ sign on a website or at a mall. Why, you ask? The textile is the second most chemically intensive industry after agriculture and is one of the largest factors behind polluted freshwater. A huge amount of water is first used for creating fabric dyes. The remaining polluted water is deposited back to places where it ultimately merges with rivers, lakes, stream and seas or seeps into the ground.

The Social Media

Using a cute hashtag and posting a pretty throwback picture -- isn’t that just harmless scrolling? Well, not really, if you look at the big picture. The companies, which work solely on the basis of the data upload online, need massive centres to store all that data. These data centres generate a huge amount of heat and require hundreds and thousands of litres of water to keep the facilities cool and running. Be it your favourite social media platform or crypto-currency mining fields, they all use up a lot of water.

Bottled Water

While bottled water appears to a good idea, there's a major catch: As many as three litres of water go into creating one litre of plastic bottle of water. And if you don’t find this fact alarming enough, here’s another one that shows plastic bottles are a threat not just to the environment but also to your own health: About 93 per cent of the bottled water -- tested by some researchers recently -- contained some sort of microplastic (plastic fragments) and it would go straight into your body when you consume it.

Opting for water purifiers, boiled water and carrying it from home when travelling may seem like small steps but can make a big contribution towards water conservation.

Do you have any ideas on how to save water? Share with us. Become a part of Harpic-News18 Mission Paani initiative and do your bit by pledging to be a #WaterWarrior.