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Mar 15, 2011 / in Blog Articles

WATER IS RUNNING OUT WORLDWIDEThis week is “Fix a Leak Week” in the United States where  household leaks waste 4 trillion liters of water per year – enough to supply the water needs of Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles combined. Imagine how much water that is…as an illustration you may have been to Victoria Falls and gasped at the sheer volume of water gushing over…95 million tons of it per day on average. Imagine that volume of water pouring down the drains for 39 days and you get an idea of the wastage of water through leaking pipes in the US.Here in South Africa, we too have serious water problems. We get only an average annual rainfall of 500mm compared to the world average of 860mm. 11 of 19 water management areas in SA have water supply problems. 12-14 million South Africans do not have access to safe drinking water. The issues being faced are: a mismatch between supply and demand, a failure to achieve demand reduction targets, decaying infrastructure, deteriorating water quality, the loss of essential skills, and undervaluing water. SA faced a supply deficit of 6% by 2013 and 11% by 2019 and if we continue at our present rate of water consumption, we could run out of drinking water before 2040.As individuals we should be aware of our indirect water consumption. As an example the average  American diet requires 15000 liters per person per day to produce. A portion of chicken takes about 350 liters of water to produce…think too of the fact that food needs to be transported and one liter of petrol takes 13 liters of water to produce. On average, a vegan, a person who doesn’t eat meat or dairy, indirectly consumes 2000 liters of water per day less than a person who eats the average American diet.We at Filcon Filters are acutely aware that water supply is finite, that water is not renewable but that it is reusable. And so we are actively involved in getting industry to recycle water, to reuse water …not to pour it down the drain, or into rivers and the sea. And so we are promoting the treatment of waste water, filtering contaminated water, cleaning water in an effort to conserve water.  You’ll notice from our web site (www.filconfilters.co.za)  the different products we offer in this regard.