Diarrhea Can Kill: The Clean Water Crisis
Today we are taking a short hiatus from our normal college advice blogging to participate in Blog Action Day, an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on a single day. This year’s topic: WATER.
Which kills more people; lack of clean water, or war? That’s right, it’s water. What’s the most common cause of death resulting from unclean water? Diarrhea.
Photo by hdptcar
If you didn’t think poop could kill, now you know. It is estimated that as many as 5,000 children die from diarrhea-related diseases each day. They get diarrhea from the parasites and bacteria commonly found in water in many impoverished countries. In some of these countries, half of the entire population lives without clean water! This means they don’t have clean water to drink, nor do they have it to bathe, wash hands, or clean open wounds. If they don’t get diarrhea from drinking the water itself, they could easily get it from fecal matter or other bacteria that remains on hands that can’t get clean. The good news is that you can change this.
How you can help:
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Conserve water at home—a typical shower uses 15-30 gallons, flushing the toilet uses 4-7 gallons. Watering the lawn takes 180 gallons! When 1 in 5 people lack safe drinking water, ask yourself, do I have to use this much? Check out the facts.
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Donate—These sites make it easy to donate to their campaigns:
www.endwaterpoverty.org
www.endpoverty2015.org/goals/environmentalsustainability
www.un.org/waterforlifedecade
http://www.wateraidamerica.org/
www.charitywater.org/donate
www.thewaterproject.org/donate
www.cleanwaterfoundation.com/donate.html -
Promote and learn about new technologies like desalination, drip irrigation, and decentralized distillation water plants, consider a career in saving the world… Some engineering opportunities for the future
Remember that access to clean water is linked with general water levels in the globe. If there’s no water, it won’t matter whether it’s clean or not. Therefore, every drop you save counts. We all share the water on this world, and shortages across the globe affect shortages at home.
Here are 100 ways you can conserve water
And…..if you’d like to give your support for clean water, sign this petition:
Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »
