Video: UNICEF's Tap Project
In 1992 The UN General Assembly proclaimed March 22nd as World Water Day. They wanted to draw international attention to the lack of clean drinking water around the globe. About 20% of the World’s population, that is 1.1 billion people, lack access to safe drinking water. The lack of clean water kills about 4500 children per day. Water stressed countries posses a third of the World’s population which mostly contains of Third World residents, Sub-Saharan Africans and South Asians. The clean water issue is much greater though; those countries cannot develop properly with no knowledge of basic hygiene and lack of basic sanitation.
Please continue reading, your attention is crucial.
The Tap Project by UNICEF (video above) aims to draw attention to the issue as well. Their Tap Project will help provide children with drinking water by gaining money using people’s everyday habits – eating out. The project is underway in NYC where all the major restaurants took the initiative and started charging $1 for the glass of water people usually get for free. With that $1 a child can drink safe water for 40 days.
The water issue in ‘the western world’ is different. A lot of people drink bottled water. Why? Let’s all buy water in plastic bottles; oh and let’s ship it around – it only takes a genius to come up with that idea. The current trend of drinking your water out of plastic is a load of crap. Our tap water is absolutely fine and you thinking our water is contaminated to the point it’s unhealthy is merely an indicator of how ’successful’ advertising/ capitalism can be. Read Kako vam prodati to, kar ze imate at Drug Dom (Slovenian). It’s very hard for a human to comprehend large numbers so here’s a visual by Chris Jordan and see his talk at Pop!Tech while you’re at it:
Bottled Water: Chris Jordan
We live in a world where we take water for granted. Which brings me to my second point: water consumption. We never pay attention to the amounts of water we use every day. And I’m not taking about pouring it in a glass and drinking it, because that’s fine. I’m referring to how much water it takes to make stuff. We’re all too lazy to read stats because they bore us, we’re more interested in pretty pictures than we are in facts; luckily we have graphic design students. A German design student Tim Kekeritz (The virtual water project) designed a poster with graphics demonstrating the water footprints of what we eat and use. Click on the image below to view a slideshow of the rest of the graphics.
Many thanks to my girl Nastja for the video :*
This is an amazing post! Thank you very much for writing it!
I have just completed a project on social effects of privatization of water; my group mates worked on environmental, health, and such topics. It is disgusting to see how wasteful we often are with water, especially how hidden this waste often is (i.e. in production, etc.).
Again: thank you!
Thank you Nik =) Good luck with your studies.
P.