The green blue book : the simple water-savings guide to everything in your life

With hundreds of entertaining facts, Thomas Kostigen gives simple tips for water saving, both the water you see and use and "virtual water," the water you cannot see but is embedded in the things you consume. For example, it takes 27 gallons of water to grow a banana but only 19 gallons of water to grow an apple—thus choosing to eat an apple can save 8 gallons of water. The Green Blue Book includes an extensive guide so you can make smarter choices and help reduce the demand for water-intensive foods and products. With breakthrough research, humor, and a hopeful message, The Green Blue Book will show how, drop by drop, one's water savings can add up. Thomas M. Kostigen sets out to show how much water all the stuff in our lives really guzzles up. And how to make more water-conscious consumer choices every day. "We need to just start looking at the world through a blue prism," says Kostigen. Freshwater makes up less than 1 percent of the total volume of water on Earth. And that precious resource is quickly being not only wasted, but contaminated, too. In his book, Kostigen guides consumers into thinking about their choices in terms of water, and shows us where we're wasting it the most. For example, in the United States, 75 percent of residential water use goes to our lawns. The Green Blue Book is an easy-to-understand resource packed with hundreds of examples (from office supplies and flooring materials to fruit juices and travel options) that will help Americans -- who typically use 656,000 gallons of water a year -- make wiser choices for human and environmental health (after all, we all need clean water to survive). Certainly, household water conservation measures, such as taking a Navy shower and installing low-flow faucets, go a long way in saving water. But Kostigen's book challenges us to think about protecting our water in a different way -- by consuming less, and by pondering life-cycle water usage whenever we buy, whether it's food, building materials, clothing, or other stuff. - Publisher.

Water is the biggest environmental issue facing us today. It's a resource we can't live without, yet most of us take it for granted as we brush, flush, and consume water seemingly without limit. We hose our driveways and over water our lawns. But all of that is about to change; we're quickly running out of our freshwater supply.

In The Green Blue Book, you'll find hundreds of simple tips for water savings in the home, garden, office, and on the go that will help you make a difference without making big changes in your life. Kostigen shows how to save water not just by turning off the tap, but through "virtual water," or the water embedded in the products we use every day. By making better decisions about which food, clothes, and house-hold necessities to use, each of use can save thousands of gallons of water-and help avert the water crisis unfolding around the globe.

With breakthrough research, humor, entertaining facts, and a hopeful message, The Green Blue Book shows how, drop-by-drop, water-saving adds up.

The water you see. Home : home is where the water is Outdoors : trimming, timing, and topping off Work : make it a water recession Sports : keeping a low water score Travel : away doesn't mean a waste The water you can't see. Foods and beverages : how much does it take to produce your produce? Clothing : are you wearing water? Furnishings : the H2O of household items Health and beauty : bail out your bathroom School and office products : the (water) supply closet Luxury : bling bilge Pets : the irony of fire hydrants Building materials and appliances : it takes a lake to lay a foundation The sum of your water existence. The water footprint calculator : liquid math Provides simple tips for water conservation--both the water readers see and use, as well as "virtual water," the water they cannot see but is embedded in the things they consume.