You’ve heard all about your carbon footprint, but do you ever think about your water footprint?

Everything you touch uses water in the manufacturing process; this hidden water is called “virtual
water,” and, says Stephen Leahy in Your Water Footprint: The Shocking Facts About How Much
Water We Use to Make Everyday Products, "each of us uses far more virtual water than the 'regular'
water we can see, feel and taste." On average, Americans use 100 gallons of regular water everyday,
and 1980 gallons of virtual water. "That means the average American’s 'water footprint'—the total
amount of direct plus virtual freshwater use—is about 8000 liters (2115 gallons) a day," Leahy
writes. "Since 1 liter weighs 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), that's the weight of four cars you have to haul
if you get all of that water from a well." That’s pretty sobering, considering that 30 percent of the
world’s population lives in areas facing water shortages. Here are the water footprints of 15
common objects and foods.

1gallon - 3,78 litre

1. Your morning cup of coffee requires_______ gallons of virtual water to produce.

2. One cup of black tea using one teabag, on the other hand, needs ______ gallons of virtual water
to grow, process, and brew.
3. The water footprint of one disposable diaper is _____ gallons. A reuseable cloth diaper’s footprint
is just four gallons. (Though the cotton required for one of these diapers is ______ gallons, the
simple fact that it will be reused up to 50 times brings that number down.)
4. Producing two pounds of wet food for your cat or dog requires ______ gallons of water.
5. It takes ________ gallons of water to grow the cotton for and manufacture one pair of jeans. (Not
included in that number is the water you’ll use to wash your jeans throughout your time owning
them.)
6. Producing two pounds of bananas requires _________gallons of water (84 percent is for growing;
the rest is accounted for in washings before sale). It works out to roughly ______ gallons per banana!
7. Manufacturing polyester doesn’t require a lot of water, so a polyester shirt requires ________
gallons. A cotton shirt needs _________ gallons.
8. Making ______ ounces of ketchup requires __________ gallons of water.
9. It takes _________ gallons of water to create the rubber tires on your car.
10. One small margherita pizza needs _____ gallons of virtual water (50 percent of that goes to
mozzarella, 44 percent to wheat flour, and 6 percent to the tomato sauce).
11. A 750-milliliter bottle of whisky requires __________ gallons of water.
12. It takes ____________ gallons of water to produce a single pasta noodle.
13. Making two pounds of paper requires _________ gallons of water—so think before you print!
14. Producing one smartphone—everything from mining metals to polishing the glass screens to
making microchips—requires _______gallons of water.
15. Making two pounds of beef requires _______ gallons of water. Feed for the livestock accounts for
99 percent of that massive footprint.