Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15, that brings people worldwide together to discuss a worthy cause. This year we bloggers are raising awareness about the issue of Clean Water.

In brief (taken from the change.org site):

• Almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water (an estimated 1 in 8 people). Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of the world’s diseases.
• That cotton t-shirt you’re wearing right now took 1,514 liters of water to produce, and your jeans required an extra 6,813 liters.
• 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% of which will never be recycled.
• Death and disease caused by polluted coastal waters costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year.
• Today, 40% of America’s rivers and 46% of America’s lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.
• Students in developing countries lose 443 million school days each year due to diseases associated with the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene. Repeated episodes of diarrhea and worm infestations diminish a child’s ability to learn and impair cognitive development.
• Communities around the world are taking steps to reduce water bottle waste by eliminating bottled water.

So, let’s do our part today and drop the bottle. It’s a small step, but it really can make a big difference.

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Adventure on!

Kristen