Glorious Water

Welcome to a special edition of Greenzine that is the start of a series of newsletters we'll be working on that will focus on a single environmental topic. In this issue, you'll learn about water and how to test your tap water for safe drinking and how catching rain water can help to conserve potable water, cut costs and "future proof" your home. At the end, we have shared with you 40 facts on everything water, some you may already know and some you may never have guessed to be true, until now.

If there is a specific topic that you would like to know more about in relation to the environment, please email us and we'll consider creating a Greenzine around that topic.

Safe H2O:
Testing Your Water
by Lynn Hasselberger

In Safe H2O Part 1, I reviewed the environmental and health issues related to bottled water and the fact that 25% (some sources say as high as 40%) or more of bottled water is tap water anyway--some treated, some not. For those concerned with their water quality, investing in a filtration system can be a very cost effective, environmentally-friendly option. But first, you need to test your water to determine what filtration system is best for you--or whether you even need one! And the good news: it's possible to treat almost any water problem--funny tasting or smelly water--with proper equipment.

Keep in mind that the U.S. has one of--if not THE--safest drinking water systems in the world. Excellent marketing by beverage companies has led us to believe otherwise; hence the high bottled water consumption levels and the worry about whether our water is safe to drink straight from the tap. [continue reading]

Rain for a Sunny Day
Future proofing your home with rain water catchment
by Andrew Michler, LEED AP

It’s late spring, and this year there has been a lot of rain in my fair state of Colorado. Being in a high desert, with all this water coming at once, makes a lot of us want to save some of it for those hot, dry, sunny days. I am perhaps one of the lucky ones, as I installed a 1,500-gallon underground tank near my shop to catch the water that comes off its metal roof. Fifteen hundred gallons sounds like a lot of water, and it is. The tank is six feet high and seven feet in diameter. "A thousand flushes" has a new ring to it. All this water is used for flushing our 1.6-gallon toilet, which is a lot easier than pumping and treating water just to have it go right down the drain again. While I use rain for waste water now, a future garden and greenhouse is in the works. Even a 500 square foot roof is enough for two people. [continue reading]

40 Facts About Water

FACT #6: On average, people in the U.S. use more than 105 gallons (400 liters)—in Europe use more than 52 gallons (200 liters)—of water per day. Flushing the toilet accounts for the largest amount of this water.

FACT #13: A lack of water has driven up the use of wastewater for agricultural production in poor urban and rural communities. More than 10% of people worldwide consume foods irrigated by wastewater that can contain chemicals or disease-causing organisms.

FACT #23: The 250 million U.S. residents living today have access to about the same amount of water that all 4 million U.S. residents did 200 years ago.

[read all 40]