Personal vs. Industrial Water Use “Turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth.”
This infographic represents many of the most manufacturing water-intensive products in an average American's possession. Let’s roughly calculate an individual’s annual water use resulting from the production of the items featured in the infographic: a daily steak, a new car every eleven-and-a-half years, two cups of coffee a day, three pairs of jeans and ten shirts a year, five 60-watt light bulbs running twelve hours a day for a year, and one new phone every two years.
This water conservation tip, accompanied by a chorus of similar recommendations, are things that we have all been told since childhood. But how does our personal water use footprint compare to the water that goes into products which we use every day? I have put together an infographic to demonstrate the amount of water that goes into one of each of a variety of products which we use daily.
Adding these calculations up to total annual water use brings us to 731,866.3 gallons of water annually for these products. Now compare that to Water.Phila.Gov’s estimated 101.5 gallons per day of personal water use resulting in 37,047.5 gallons annually for things like showering, taking a bath, brushing your teeth, washing dishes, and flushing the toilet. The products
Written by Reid Wilson
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