What Do You Know About Clean Water?

Did you know that nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water, which causes a litany of struggles, diseases and even death?

Here are some of the FACTS:

African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.

Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.

In July, to address the water crisis, the United Nations declared access to clean water and sanitation a human right over. But we are far from implementing solutions to secure basic access to safe drinking water.

The US, Mexico and China lead the world in bottled water consumption, with people in the US drinking an average of 200 bottles of water per person each year. Over 17 million barrels of oil are needed to manufacture those water bottles, 86 percent of which will never be recycled.

What are the SOLUTIONS?

Building Wells: Organizations like Water.org and charity: water are leading the charge in bringing fresh water to communities in the developing world.

Conservation Starts at Home: The average person uses 465 liters of water per day. Find out how much you use and challenge your readers to do that same.

Keeping Rivers Clean: We can all take small steps to help keep pollution out of our rivers and streams, like correctly disposing of household wastes.

Drop the Bottle: Communities around the world are taking steps to reduce water bottle waste by eliminating bottled water.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Consider contributing directly to clean water projects abroad. Our partners charity: water and Water.org are both working to bring clean water to communities around the world. A donation of as little as $25 to Water.org can give one person clean water for life.

Let's work together to make sure every human being on the planet has access to clean water.