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Today Is World Water Day

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Today is World Water Day, as declared by the United Nations.

On a planet 2/3 covered with water, it may boggle the mind that so little of it is fit to drink, or use in industry or agriculture.

Christianne Barranguet, Ph.D, a water expert at health/science publisher Elsevier, says you and I can just turn on the tap, but it's hardly that easy for much of the world.

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"As many as almost 800 million people do not have access to clean water, as we speak, and if you think about sanitation which goes together with water, the access to a clean toilet for instance, we have 2.5 billion people who do not have access to sanitation."

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Barranguet says the average American uses 132 times the water as a person in Mozambique, not just to drink and bathe but in support of our First World economy.

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She says the US is actually an exporter of water; some of it goes literally in fruits and vegetables, some figuratively in manufactured goods.

 

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