 Count the ways you and your family use water. Drinking. Cooking. Bathing. Doing laundry. Housecleaning. Watering the lawn. Washing the car. Giving the dog a bath. In industrialized countries, the average family of four consumes 250 gallons of water each day.
But that's only a small part of the water usage picture. So many of the things that we take for granted, things that make our lives easier, also depend on water—vast quantities of water.
Consider that it took approximately 100,000 gallons of water to manufacture your family's car. The newspaper that landed on your doorstep last Sunday morning soaked up 280 gallons of water just to print. And that five-pound sack of flour sitting on your kitchen shelf required 375 gallons of water to produce. In the United States, water consumption increased by more than 100 percent in the last half century. In the same period, it rose by more than 500 percent in Europe and 300 percent in Africa. Many experts predict world consumption will double by 2020.
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