We have been sitting here for over an hour debating how much cereal in kilograms we each eat each week (say that 5 times fast). We are using this calculator to determine our water footprint. Here are our results (water consumption from each of the following, food, domestic use and industrial):
Food Domestic Industrial Total
Jen 156m3 23m3 759m3 938m3
Joe 339m3 153m3 1011m3 1503m3
B 115m3 12m3 126m3 253m3
TOTAL 610m3 188m3 1896m3 2694m3
The calculator allows you to enter your the amount of your gross salary that you spend each year to determine the amount of water you consume from your industrial goods consumption. We found their explanation to be very confusing so we just ball parked what we think we each spend each year (including mortgage, vacations, car payments, clothes, food etc).
The average Canadians annual water footprint is 2,333m3. As you can see by our numbers above we are all well below this and our total for our entire family of 3 is just above this number at 2,694m3. Not too shabby! The global average is 1,385m3 and B and I are still well below that with Joe coming in just above it.
The US average is 2,842m3/year and the UK is 1,258m3/year.
What do we do to reduce our families impact?
Food
* We eat a lot of fresh food vs processed foods
* B and I don't drink cows milk. We drink almond milk.
* We have several meals each week that are meatless. I have more than Joe does.
* I drink tea instead of coffee
Domestic
* We don't wash our cars often
* We don't go crazy watering our gardens (and we have a rain barrel)
* We have low flow showers and toilets
* B and I turn the water off when we brush our teeth etc.
* We only turn our dishwasher on when it is full
Industrial
* We don't really buy all that much 'stuff'
* B's clothes are mostly hand me downs or otherwise bought used
* We buy some of B's toys used
You can see other tips for reducing your Hidden Water consumption in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
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How are you liking the switch to almond milk? I like it in most things and appreciate the long shelf life. I hate it in coffee though. There's a really awesome coconut milk creamer I can find sometimes but it's not available everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI am loving almond milk! I have tried a few kinds and settled on one that both B and I enjoy. I'm not a fan of it in my tea either but I find that I am getting used to it.
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