The Slow Food USA Blog

Celebrate World Water Day

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This Sunday, March 22nd is World Water Day, and there are a bunch of ways you get involved.

Don‘t: buy a big plastic bottle of brand name water and toast your friends.
Do: Drink from the tap!

According to the World Health Organization, 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water, and 2.3 billion people suffer from water-borne diseases each year.  The supply of water in the world is shrinking — the freshwater supply is being depleted by water-intensive agriculture, population growth, industrial pollution and many other ecological threats.

World Water Day is an international day chosen by the U.N. In 1992 to highlight the importance of the sustainable management of freshwater and freshwater resources.  Our friends at Food and Water Watch have put together a short list of activities you can participate in to support water conservation and to educate ourselves.

-Join the “Take Back the Tap” campaign and pledge to kick the bottled water habit.  Urge your friends, the government, restaurants and campuses to do the same. 

Individual Pledge
Restaurant Pledge

-Learn more about the shortage of water by watching these inspiring documentaries (and host a screening with friends or your local chapter): FLOW, Blue Gold and The Water Front.

-Show thanks. Take a moment to send a thank-you note to a hard-working water activist.

-Attend a Water Day educational event – find a list of UN-sponsored events

Food and Water Watch worked with Slow Food at Slow Food Nation 2008 in San Francisco to keep the event free of bottled water.  The organization has a great resource on their web site for how to keep an event bottled-water free.