FAQS about Water
Learn about water usage and do your part to help conserve our most precious natural resource.
- Less than 2% of the Earth's water supply is fresh water.
- Of all the Earth's water. 97% is salt water found in oceans and seas.
- Only 1% of the Earth's water is available for drinking water. 2% is frozen.
- The human body is about 75% water.
- A person can survive about a month without food, but only 5 to 7 days without water.
- Less than 2% of the Earth's water supply is fresh water.
- Every day in the US, we drink about 110 million gallons of water.
- Showering and bathing are the largest indoor uses of water, about 27%.
- The average American uses 140-170 gallons a day.
- If every household in America had a faucet that dripped once each second, 928 million gallons of water a day would leak away.
- One flush of a toilet can use 6-7 gallons of water. An average family of four uses 881 gallons of water per week just by flushing the toilet.
- On average, a bath requires 37 gallons of water.
- An average shower uses approximately 40 gallons in just 10 minutes.
- You use about 5 gallons of water while brushing your teeth with the water running.
- A dairy cow must drink 4 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.
- 300 million gallons of water are needed to produce a single day's supply of US newsprint
- It takes between 3,000 and 6,000 gallons of water to power a 60-watt incandescent light bulb for 12 hours a day, for one year.
- If all of the world's water were to fit inside 100 glasses, the supply available for human consumption would be less than 3/4 of one glass.
- A garden hose uses more than 10 gallons of water per minute.
- It takes 50 gallons of water to wash a car.
- It takes about 20 gallons of water to wash dishes by hand.