This year's World Water Day invites us to reflect on the existence of simple, natural solutions for safeguarding such a precious resource. And what about Italians — how do they use it?
Chameleons change colour to camouflage themselves. Horses sleep standing up so they are ready to flee from predators. Broken bones mend, wounds heal, snapped branches grow back. Nature knows how to solve problems and we need not be afraid to trust it: that is the message of World Water Day 2018. This year's theme is Nature for water; the aim is to demonstrate that nature-based solutions are the most effective way to safeguard water resources. In just twenty years, more than five billion people risk having insufficient water due to the effects of climate change: drought can be prevented through reforestation and the restoration of wetlands, while flooding can be countered by rehabilitating river ecosystems and building green "infrastructure" such as "walls" of trees and mangrove "embankments".
The World Water Day, celebrated on 22 March every year since the United Nations established it in 1993, also aims to remind us that not everyone has access to drinking water. Guaranteeing it for the entire world population is one of the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. Water is an essential component of the human body, covers more than 70 per cent of our planet and is essential to the life of every living being: a camel, when thirsty, can drink more than one hundred litres in the space of about ten minutes.
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On the occasion of World Water Day 2018, LifeGate presented the fourth Osservatorio nazionale sullo stile di vita sostenibile in Milan. New to this year's edition is an analysis of Italians' behaviour regarding water consumption, carried out in collaboration with research institute Eumetra MR and with the support of Culligan, a leading company in water purification systems that offers practical, cost-effective solutions for treating tap water, reducing household costs and minimising environmental impact.
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Eumetra MR prepared a questionnaire to be administered to 800 adults statistically representative of the population. Their responses revealed that at home 67 per cent of Italians drink mineral water in plastic bottles, a figure that rises to 78 per cent when eating out. This is because around half the population believes that bottled water is safer. The choice of glass is not particularly widespread in the home (25 per cent), but increases in public venues (64 per cent).
A team of researchers from the State University of New York at Fredonia found nearly twice as many microplastics in bottled water as in tap water. The analysis, commissioned by Orb Media, examined 259 bottles from 11 different brands sourced from five continents. Only 17 were free of plastic. The others contained an average of 10.4 particles per litre, compared with tap water, which contained 4.45 per litre. In light of this finding, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced its intention to carry out an investigation into the potential health risks for humans.
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If the WHO were to demonstrate that tap water is safer than bottled water, 68 per cent of Italians would be willing to change their habits. The European Commission has recently drawn up proposals to improve the quality of drinking water across the Union: the aim is to update the list of microbiological parameters, modernise the monitoring system, improve the service and provide consumers with detailed information about the product's characteristics.
Giving up bottled water and drinking tap water might seem like a step back in time; in reality, it is what will secure our future. It is a choice in keeping with the principles of the circular economy, because it involves neither the production of waste nor the emission of CO2 from the manufacture and transport of mineral water bottles. European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans recalls that as a child, when he lived in Italy, "drinking tap water was sometimes a health risk. Today that is no longer the case, but a culture has built up in the country that persists." Yet tap water is subject to dozens of checks every day. We must trust nature, which is capable of offering us everything we need and is perfect just as it is.