[google is very unhelpful, it’s broken now. I can’t find any posts explaining the specific thing I want to know]
Was asked this question by a friend.
When we say that producing one item of clothing uses x amount of water. She doesn’t see the harm because the water used to grow cotton doesn’t disappear “it’s part of the cycle”.
Pollution must be a factor right? There is a difference between drinking water, saltwater and contaminated water? (Surely they’re not using clean drinking water for production?)
Exasperated by the fact that production is usually performed in areas with poor regulation/infrastructure.
(Is it inherently damaging, or damaging because of how it’s performed?)
Is the water “used” because it becomes vapor? Is it used because the molecules are taken apart? Either way shouldn’t this technically be reversible?
[I am not very articulate, and I find it very difficult to organize my thoughts to words. This question ended up frustratingly inprecise!]
Edit: thanks for the good responses:)
In: Biology
Only so much water is usable fresh water. If you pump all the water out of a local aquifer to grow cotton, it will take thousands of years to refill, and it will never refill if you keep using all the water. So once the reserves are dry, you’ve effectively used up that supply of fresh water, and only paltry amounts will be refilled by rainwater in our lifetimes.
If you live in the US, we have a major problem in the Western states because we use more water than is replenished into the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Nature doesn’t bring more rain just because we use more water, so the lakes and aquifers just run dry.
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