How Much Water Are You Wasting?

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Every time you take a long shower, you might feel a pang because you’re wasting water. On a micro scale, shame on you! However, on a macro scale, you’re in the clear.

All this is a drop in the bucket when it comes to industrial use of water. In point of fact, industry worldwide makes up approximately 92% of water usage. Only 8% of the water supply goes for domestic use.

Bear in mind that only 2.5% of the world’s water supply is drinkable. The rest is brackish sludge that will kill you. Even so, the vast majority—an estimated 70%—of potable water is locked up in glaciers. Most of the rest of the fresh water is contained deep underground or in soil, and is virtually inaccessible.

In fact the fresh water we have access to makes up 0.005% of the world’s total water supply. This is causing shortages all over the world, leading countries to find alternative means of obtaining fresh water, such as desalination of seawater.

How Does Industry Use Water?

Farming is the big culprit when you look at it on a global scale, making up approximately 80% of water usage worldwide. The picture changes in industrialized nations, and farming pales in comparison to manufacturing, which makes up 60% of water usage in developed countries. That is a lot of water.

Excluding farming, it is worth noting how water is used in various industries. Water is used to make cars, electricity, refining oil and everything else. Manufacturing overall uses approximately 20,000,000,000 gallons of water a day. Sounds like a lot? Nuclear power plants use up 200,000,000,000 gallons of water per day, making up 50% of industrial water use worldwide.

Some industrial water use has led to good. The pharmaceutical industry uses an advanced water purification method. Indeed, the use of pharmaceutical engineering vapor compression machines is integral in the manufacturing process. The upshot is that the technology used in pharmaceutical grade water purification is making its way to purifying water on a macro scale. This use of alternative water sources supplies large populations with a net positive increase in clean drinking water.