The average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water at home daily, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If that seems like a really high number let's first consider how water is used in our everyday lives.
To start, we all use water for drinking, washing, cleaning, cooking, and growing food—making it our most precious resource for survival. What adds to that daily household water use, is that even more water is used by industry to generate electricity, manufacture products, and transport people and goods.
All of the water that we use comes from local lakes, rivers, streams or underground aquifers, depending on your city and state. How we use water depends on the purpose at hand.
Household Water Uses
Common household uses consume a lot of water. It may take between 30 and 40 gallons for one bath while the average toilet uses about 5 gallons of water per flush. Other estimated household use averages in America include:
Approximately 20 to 40 gallons of water for one shower.
Washing machines use an average of 25 gallons per load.
The kitchen sink takes roughly 20 gallons per day for preparing food and washing dishes.
The bathroom sink, used for washing hands, shaving and brushing teeth, requires about 15 gallons per day.
Much of our residential freshwater resources are also used for watering lawns, flower beds, and vegetable gardens, as well as washing cars and filling swimming pools. Also, it should be noted that many people use chemicals on lawns and gardens before watering with freshwater resources. This practice washes the chemicals off of plants into storm drains and straight into rivers and streams where fish make their homes. This kind of polluted water can kill fish and wildlife.
Communities
Cities use water for firefighting, street cleaning, and watering public areas such as parks, grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers. Water is also used to fill public drinking fountains, including those at schools and libraries. All of the different businesses in your community also use large amounts of water.
Think about all the water that is used by restaurants, hospitals, laundries, dry cleaners, golf courses, hotels, car washes, beauty shops, barbershops, gas stations, and health clubs as well as all of the other businesses in town. These all add up to quite a big demand on local water supplies.
Farming
The amount of water needed to run a farm is tremendous. When we think of water on a farm, we think of watering crops; but the amount of water needed on a dairy farm is just as large. Chickens, pigs, sheep, and all the other animals in a farmyard need drinking water to stay alive. Food must be grown for them to eat, and water is also required in the cooling systems used to keep the production of meat fresh.
Vegetable and grain crops also require water. Water is used in spreading fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, which produce a greater crop yield (which also contaminates the water). Most of the water used on farms is used for irrigation. Studies show that by using drip irrigation, farmers can conserve up to 60% of the water that it would normally take to irrigate their crops using other systems of irrigation.
It takes about 26 gallons of water to produce one ear of corn while it takes about 2000-2500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. Around 120 gallons of water is required to produce one egg. About 300 gallons of water is needed to produce one loaf of bread, and it takes about 12,000 gallons of water to grow a bushel of wheat. Believe it or not, about 1,400 gallons of water are used during the final production of one fast-food meal including a burger, fries, and a soft drink.
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