If the question were asked: "What is our planet's MOST valuable natural resource?' many might not realize the answer is fresh water. With more than 7 billion people calling Planet Earth 'home', there is an ever-increasing demand for preserving Earth's natural resources.
On average, a person can live no more than a few days without water consumption, and 80% of all diseases in the world are water-related, this according to the World Health Organization. Shockingly, only 2.5% of the total volume of the world's water is fresh ? the rest is salt-water.
Portable Restrooms Are Planet Earth's Ally
The Portable Sanitation Association International tells us that 45 BILLION gallons of fresh water are saved every year, around the world, thanks to portable restroom usage. If we break that down, we get about 125,000,000 gallons of fresh water that are saved every single day, globally. If we break that down, even further, and isolate just North America, 73.7 million gallons of water are saved each day, thanks to to portable restrooms being used.
It is, also, interesting to point out the estimated number of portable restrooms that are used on a daily basis. Globally, the total comes to 3.4 million/day, and for North America, the number comes to 2.0 million/day. Generally speaking, the water saved from one portable restroom unit being used during a period of one week is 384 gallons. The water saved from one portable restroom unit being used during a period of one day amounts to 55 gallons.
And it is not just the volume of water that is conserved due to the usage of portable restrooms, but the health of fresh water, as well. Water contamination in some parts of the world runs rampant due to portable restrooms that are not available; fortunately, that is changing. Many areas of the world that never had portable restrooms do, now. This means people are using portable restroom facilities instead of river-ways and land areas to dispose of human waste. This is critical since there is far less contamination of land and water ? and that saves lives ? LOTS of them! According to Kansas-City based Water.org: "No other invention has saved more lives than the toilet.?
Putting Water-Saving into Perspective
One might appreciate portable restrooms' water-saving benefits even more if one becomes aware of some astonishing statistics:
*** About 1% of the earth's fresh water is available for safe drinking
*** About 75% of Earth's drinkable water is within glaciers and ice caps. Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth
*** An American family uses about 80-100 gallons of water per day for cooking/showers/washing clothes/watering lawns etc. Outdoor watering, alone, can use up to 2 gallons/minute.
*** A European family uses about 50 gallons of water per day
*** A sub-Saharan African family uses an average of 3.5 gallons per day
*** The USGS tells us that over the next 25 years, it is projected that the US will need to invest $1 trillion to meet its water demand
The portable restroom industry continues its quest to provide not only a huge convenience at outdoor events of every type, but the industry, also, continues to do its part to conserve those 125,000,000 gallons of water, per day! Yes, portable restrooms truly are unsung heroes!