The Best Way You Can Save Water for #WorldWaterDay
Taking shorter showers and installing a low-flow showerhead are great ideas—you’ll save about 45 liters of water every day. But did you know that you can save more water by not eating half a kilo of beef than you can by giving up showers for an entire year?
1 Steak = 50 Baths
In honor of World Water Day, we’re highlighting the best way to save water—by going vegan.
It takes an enormous amount of water to grow crops for animals to eat, clean filthy factory farms, and give animals water to drink. A single cow used for milk can drink up to 190 liters of water per day—or twice that amount in hot weather—and it takes 2,585 liters of water to produce just 3.5 liters of milk. It takes about 15,500 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of beef, compared with just 1,000 liters to produce 1 kilogram of wheat. By going vegan, one person can save approximately 829,005 liters of water a year.
Much of the world’s water supply is quietly being diverted to animal agriculture—even desert nations in Africa and the Middle East are pouring what little water they have into meat production. Each day, animal agriculture consumes a shocking 2.5 trillion liters of water—enough for everyone in the world to take eight showers.
A recent U.N. report calls the livestock sector “a key player in increasing water use” and “probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution.” Waste, antibiotics, and pesticides from factory farms and slaughterhouses contaminate water sources. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 50,000 people—but without the sewage system.
In addition to saving the lives of more than 100 animals per year, going vegan is the best way to conserve water and the most sustainable way of life for people and the planet.
