Efficient water use starts at home. A previous article published by WaterWideWeb on 11 March 2011 discussed the Courtesy Flush Challenge. Readers were challenged to flush responsibly, and upgrade their toilets and other bathroom fixtures to save as much H20 as possible.

Fortunately, saving water doesn’t stop at the flush of a toilet. Washing laundry is a major use of water that some Americans can take for granted. So, how can clothes still get squeaky clean by using less water?

A dirty habit that some individuals or families may suffer from is poor planning before laundry day. Don’t wait until every clothing item that you own is completely soiled before popping it in the wash.

Bigger loads use more water to complete cycles while the clothes are washing. Several small loads will use less water and energy, while ensuring that everything will come out fresh and clean.

Large loads will take up large amounts of water to get clothes clean but loads of only 3 or 4 items wastes water as well.

Plan ahead. Make sure that every load that you’re putting into the washing machine is just right to wash. Effective planning is the key to efficiency.

After making sure that your wash is large enough but not so much that the machine will overflow, be careful that what you’re throwing into the wash really needs to be cleaned.

Of course, there are some clothing items that may be soiled from spilled coffee, a case of the clumsies, or a good old fashioned office food fight.

But if there isn’t a big embarrassing stain on your white shirt that you wore just once, hang it up and the next day it will be just like new. If ain’t dirty, don’t launder it!

Being a good steward of water resources doesn’t require international policies and air tight water bands. A series of small decisions to use water smarter can make the world of difference when it comes to saving natural resources. Wash the right way, and make sure all your clothes come out smelling fresh and clean.

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Did you know that the water footprint of a pound of plastic is 24 gallons, and 1.5 gallons of water are used to make the average plastic bottle? The water footprint of a pound on cotton is 101 and an average person is responsible for the consumption of around 10 gallons of water day due all the clothes one buys and uses. (Source: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.h2oconserve.org/uploads/water_footprint_handout.pdf). It is obvious that if you need clothes it is impossible for you to even imagine that you won’t buy yourself a sweater because it has a considerable amount of water footprint. These statistics serve to raise awareness and instigate water conservation in all other possible fields like the use of energy. Indeed, the water footprint of the United States’ energy supply consists of 40% of the country’s fresh water use. In order to power our homes, average Americans use from 4 to 5 gallons of water.

Simple Tips for the kitchen

Here are some simple tips can contribute to a considerable amount of water conservations and they don’t even require that much of an effort. Refusing to buy a dishwasher because you feel so eco-friendly is an error you shouldn’t commit! Considering that today’s dishwashers are all energy-efficient, if you run them when the dishwasher is completely full, they all consume less water than when you wash your dishes by hand. Yet, if you have other reasons, of course you can continue to wash you dishes by hand but remember to not let the water running the whole time! An easy tip is to fill one sink with the water you will wash and the other with the water you will use to rinse them. Once you have taken care of your dishes, you are ready to prepare supper. Well no matter what you are cooking, rather its pasta or boiled vegetables, remember that you don’t need excessive amounts of water for boiling. Use water just enough to submerge your pasta or potatoes! You don’t need to drown them in water! If by any case, you have some water left after you are done boiling, you can leave it until it cools off and use that same water to water your plants! I bet you had never thought of that! On a warm summer day, you tend to leave the water run until it gets really cold just the way you like it? You should instead plan ahead and carefully store water in a carafe that you place in the fridge.

Other tips for the bathroom

When you brush your teeth or are shaving you should always remember to turn the faucet off. Moreover, if you have leaky faucets, that never-ending drop is not just annoying! “You can lose about 20 gallons of water per day from a single drippy faucet!” (Source: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.h2oconserve.org/uploads/tips_bathroom.pdf). It is also worth reminding you that you should try to spend less time possible in the shower! Do you know that your toilet might be leaking without you even knowing it is? A easy way to find out is to put food coloring in the water. If the color appears on the bowl without you flushing there is a good probability that you have a leak that needs to be repaired (Source: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.h2oconserve.org/uploads/tips_bathroom.pdf).

Saving water outdoors

To avoid evaporation water your lawn and outdoor plants during the coolest periods of the day: early in the morning or late at night. Make sure you position the sprinkler in the right direction and that you avoid even turning it on when a rainy day in the forecast. There is no need to over water your lawn, since “lawns need watering every 5 to 7 days in the summer and every 10 to 14 days in the winter. A hearty rain eliminates the need for watering for as long as two weeks” (Source: http://www.americanwater.com/49ways_outdoor.php).

The tips we have given you are simple and easy to follow and are an amazing way to save water and save money on your gas and water bill. Children are taught to eat everything they have for lunch because throwing out food is a disrespectful action, mocking the rest of the world that lives in hunger. We should tell them the same thing with water, not everyone has the luxury and luck to be able to grab a glass of water from the tap. Would you let the shower run until it gets perfectly warm if you had to walk 6 miles a day in order to get a bucket of water?

On October 13, Live Earth decided to launch the world’s largest water initiative in order to prevent and fight water scarcity through the medium of social awareness and concrete conservation plans. The Dow Live Earth Run for Water is a World even that took place on April 18, 2010 that consisted in a 6km run/walks (the average distance women and children walk on a daily basis in order to access the nearest source or well), “taking place over the course of 24 hours in 150 countries, featuring concerts and water education activities to ignite a massive global movement to help solve the water crisis” (Source: http://liveearth.org/run).  This massive World initiative is supported by Alexandra Cousteau, Jessica Biel, Pete Wentz and Jenny Fletcher, to name just a few of the many people who gave their image, time, support and money in order to communicate this event internationally and to help raise awareness. In countries like the United States or Canada where most people live comfortably and the average citizen has an easy access to water, the World problem of water scarcity might seem far away distant. The use of media and entertainment is a useful approach that takes advantage of a extremely strong medium of communication, music, in order to raise awareness and make people realize that this issue isn’t all in the ends of scientists or federal governments.  With this initiative many of us realized that the water crisis isn’t limited to the African continent or developing countries: “in cities such as Los Angeles and Singapore City, growing demand on limited water supplies has led to enforced water rationing and increased costs to the public”(Source: http://ruimacdonald.com/wordpress/?p=3046). In addition to the World crisis of water scarcity, it is important not to forget the impact of climate change and global warming that are altering the normal water cycle and contaminating water with pollution. This event was inspired after the success of the 2007 Concerts for a Climate in Crisis where music appears to be an effective medium for communication especially when it comes to fundraising and social awareness.

According to the World Water Council, “ more than one out of six people lack access to safe drinking water, namely 1.1. billion people, and more than two out of six lack adequate sanitation, while 3900 children die every day from water born diseases” ( Source: http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=25). These statistics are alarming considering that the World population is increasing everyday, and so is the demand for water, while the actual drinkable quantity of water is diminishing rapidly. As the World’s most vital resource is becoming scarce, tensions at the political level on a national and international scale are only going to worsen. Considering that most water sources and river basins are shared between various territories, the absence of regulations or legislations could lead to serious tensions in times of scarcity and crisis.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the Dow Live Earth Run for Water is not meant to alarm people but instead its goal is to make everyone understand that local initiative and individual effort will make a considerable difference for our future and the future of our planet. Paul Faeth, the president of the Global Water Challenge has declared “the World water crisis is the single greatest avoidable health challenge of our time”. Yes, there is a sense of urgency in his words but also an undertone of hope and the need for mobilization and change in regards to wasting the precious liquid.

If you are interested in this one of a kind organization and you want to support the Dow Live Earth Run for Water please register on their website as a “Friend of Live Earth” at http://liveearth.org/friends. You can help about by telling all your friends about this global initiative and posting your comments on our website. We need to work together in order to stop the water crisis and to stop the most “avoidable health challenge of our time”.

Commitment to Conservation

Johnson & Johnson is publicly commitment to environmental issues in order to achieve long-term sustainability for a healthy planet. Every five years, the company establishes new long-term goals in order to help reduce environmental damages.  The J&J family group started setting environmental goals in 1990 and has managed to accomplish some considerable results: since then, they have “reduce waste, water and energy use, raw material and packaging in order to adopt a more eco-friendly stance on their production. Their environmental goals include the reduction of carbon dioxide and water use. Their goal for 2010 is the “absolute reduction in CO₂ emissions of 7%”.  When it comes to water use, J&J’s goal is the reduction of 10% in water use compared to the 2005 baseline. So far, they have managed to reduce water use by 6% from 2005 to 2007″ (Source: http://www.jnj.com/connect/caring/environment-protection/environment-performance). New goals will go into effect in 2011.

Water scarcity is increasingly all around the world: the demand surpasses the available resource in an alarming manner.
Even India, where social and religious traditions have always held a great respect and reverence for water as a source of life, is now suffering from water-scarcity.
Achal is Manager of Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) at the Johnson & Johnson Consumer manufacturing facility in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh-region of India. Part of the activities he oversees, include a zero-discharge wastewater treatment facility: every drop of treated water is recuperated for irrigation and toilet flushing. Another very interesting initiative supported and applied by the company in India is rain harvesting (read our special post on rain harvesting and learn more: /rainwater-harvesting.html). Water is collected from the rooftops in order to be reused afterward. “The huge amount of water during monsoon season was going directly to the storm drain and was wasted,” says Achal. “So we decided to make us of it.
A tremendous effort made within these regions in order to share and exchange knowledge with the scope of spreading the word about the methods and importance of conserving water. Local initiatives and training on the field need to be done in order to assure that these strategies for water conservation become long-term sustainable projects. On a regular basis, training lectures are put together for the staff. A water storage tank was installed along with piping modification, at an Ethicon facility in Aurangabad, western India, in order to lower the overall water consumption.

Sustainable Report form 2008

Every annual report begins with an introduction of Johnson& Johnson about their corporate identity and their “credo”.  This last report put emphasis on transparency in order to achieve a greater level of trust and commitment towards customers and various stakeholders.  This reports highlights the importance and the difference that an eco-friendly packaging of products can do for the environment. Increasing recycled content, reducing packaging weight and eliminating materials like PVC (polyvinyl chloride) are just a few on the many favorable changes the company has managed to adopted in its packaging.

It is also important to mention that the report presents a special focus on water conservation. “In 2008, Johnson & Johnson used approximately 3 billion gallons of water-enough to fill 4, 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools- in our manufacturing process and our office facilities”

(Source: http://www.jnj.com/wps/wcm/connect/ad9170804f55661a9ec3be1bb31559c7/2008+Sustainability+Report.pdf?MOD=AJPERES).

According to their website, their goal is to reduce absolute water use by 10 percent from 2005-to 2010. Progress has been made in the water consumption went from 12,6% in 2005 to 11,5% in 2008.

Controversy from the past

Not long ago Johnson & Johnson had to recall a considerable amount of painkillers such as Tylenol and Motrin from pharmacies due to an “odor problem for some kinds of Tylenol” (Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/01/johnson_johnson_recalls_more_m_1.html) and because in various cases patients had developed secondary effects like nausea and vomiting after taking the medicines. The situation only got worst when associations of worried mothers publicly declared the presence of carcinogens (like formaldehyde and 1,4 dioxane) in baby bath’s products (Source: http://www.thegreenparent.com/2009/04/02/johnson-johson-responds-to-criticism/). In a certain sense it appears that the famous company has refused to fully respond to criticism replying that the traces of carcinogens are in such small quantity that they wouldn’t be harmful for any baby. Yet, the question still remains unanswered as to why a child’s baby shower needs to contain even small traces of carcinogens. Without neglecting their cause for environmental conservation, perhaps, the company should focus priorly on their customers that put all their trust into their products. It yet appears that things are looking up again for this world-know company, as it made it on Fortune 500’s list of top companies to be admired and even managed to rank number 4 in the over all category and number 2 in the pharmaceutical companies category. (Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/2010/snapshots/235.html)

Johnson & Johnson’s environmental accomplishments help to confirm their commitment to their Credo that states that we must “maintain in good order the property we are privileged to use, protecting the environment and natural resources.” With the situation of the environment today, corporations have no choice but to pay attention to environmental problematic in order to assure the survival of their company and to respect their raw resources they so desperately need in order to produce their goods and services.

The professional that deals with this specific area is the marine biologist. The range of skills is as vast as its environment : everything from the smallest organisms, such as certain protozoa to the cetaceans, (probably the largest organisms on Earth) is studied, monitored and analyzed.

In both areas of flora and fauna that inhabit the seas and oceans of our planet research is currently very active, both in defining the characters of individual species and in the cataloguing and classification of the species themselves.

There are many interesting initiatives related to marine biology in the vast library of the World Wide Web. One of them is called the Marine Bio’s, whose mission is to :

• “Share the wonders of the underwater world and raise awareness of marine conservation issues.
• Provide an online library of scientifically accurate information on the most endangered and the most common marine species.
• Provide an online introductory education in marine life science along with extensive information on marine conservation.
• Provide forums for marine scientists, conservation organizations and others with an interest in marine conservation to share information and communicate on issues of importance.
• Provide research tools for marine life scientists to find useful resources with information on current research, news, and trends and to highlight the impact of the work they are doing in the marine life sciences.”

You can find many different projects which are currently underway that you can join and support at any moment.  One example of a planning project:

Project 7

Marine Conservation Organizations Research Project – via surveys and interviews we hope to determine the current status of marine conservation efforts, specifically, to find out which marine species of the endangered and threatened are on the radar, the success of the efforts underway, which efforts are the most successful and why, which species are in dire need, and which species and areas need the most help.

Status: PLANNING

(Source: http://marinebio.org/Research/Projects/)

An interesting article posted on Science Daily’s website on June 15 2010 tells us about a recent study concerning the warm-blooded marine reptiles at the time of dinosaurs:

“Between 200 and 65 million years ago, fearsome marine reptiles reigned over the oceans. Were they warm-blooded like today’s mammals and birds or cold-blooded like nowadays fish and reptiles? For the first time, a study has settled the debate: some large marine reptiles were warm-blooded (in other words, they were endothermic), giving them a considerable advantage to swim fast over long distances and to conquer cold regions.”

(Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100614093341.htm)

As you can read there is lot of information about the biology’s marine subject, our purpose is to keep you updated about all news and projects.

H₂O Conserve Water Lessons:

Why a water curriculum?
Access to clean, reliable water sources is the new crisis of the 21st century considering that right this instant more than a billion people currently lack a clean and efficient drinking water supply.

While the United States has some of the world’s best water supplies, water restrictions, water quality problems, and conflicts over water rights is on the rise.

Once it will become operative,  the H₂O Conserve Water Lessons Curriculum will have four units designed to introduce students ranging from 4th through 12th grade to the uses and misuses of water, to the need for quality, its lack of availability and more importantly how water can be protected and conserved. The units will cover the following issues: Water and Food, Water and Energy, Household Water Use, and Bottled Water.

Each unit is a downloadable PDF and include the Lesson Text, a Multiple Choice Quiz, a Challenge Quiz, and a Topic Debate.

(source : http://www.h2oconserve.org/?page_id=51)

This curriculum will be interdisciplinary in nature and with the purpose of complementing  social studies, earth science, english, and humanities education. This way, from a very young age, the generations to come will be educated with a eco-green mentality aware of the importance of water and natural resources for the long term sustainability of our planet.

If accompanied by a weekly trip to the swimming pool, water lessons might just become your child’s favorite topic at a school. These lessons are educational yet fun and interactive while they also engage with basic and useful skills such as essay writing, reading and comprehension, chart interpretation and critical thinking. Who knows what is next? I bet a summer water day camp could become every child’s favorite!