When thinking about how much water you use you probably think about how much water you use from the taps or tanks around the house and garden, and perhaps even the amount you use at work. But have you ever thought about the amount of water used to produce some of those items you take for granted in your life - food, clothing, furniture, building materials, etc.?

There is often a high amount of 'embodied water' associated with many items we use or consume on an everyday basis. This is the amount of water used during the growing, processing and transportation of the goods we use or consume, or the services we use.

As an example, here are some statistics showing the amount of water used to produce some everyday items.
It takes...

• 140L of fresh water to produce 1 cup of coffee
• 1,000L of fresh water to produce 1L of milk
• 1,350L of fresh water to produce 1kg of wheat
• 3,000L of fresh water to produce 1kg of rice, and
• 16,000L of fresh water to produce 1kg of beef

(Source: www.waterfootprint.org)

You may have heard of an ecological footprint before - put simply it calculates the number of earths that would be needed to sustain our population if everyone in the world had the same lifestyle as us.

Now the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education and the University of Twente, Netherlands, have developed a water footprint.

The water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation.

A 2003 survey by the Australian Food and Grocery Council revealed that Australia wastes about 2.2 million tonnes of food a year and that this food contains sufficient embodied water to supply all households in Sydney and Melbourne with enough water for a year.

So think about what you're really wasting - try to plan your food purchases and consumption to reduce wastage.