Frankfurt on the Main, 21st March 2012 - “Food Safety and Water” is the theme for this year’s World Water Day on March 22, 2012. Blue Responsibility, an international initiative by the German sanitary industry, has been promoting this theme for several years now: Championing the responsible use of water across the globe, the initiative has dedicated itself to providing people with all they need to know about drinking water.
Water is the most precious resource our planet has to offer. The majority of our fresh water resources gets used in food production – both manufacturing and processing. To give an example: The production of one kilogram of beef requires 15,000 liters of water – a kilogram of wheat needs just one tenth of that amount. Did you know that water saving measures can be introduced along each stage of the food chain? Under the motto of “Food Safety and Water” World Water Day draws our attention to this on March 22, 2012.
Perfect drinking water – a simple natural fact in Germany?
Water is essential not only when it comes to food production: Clean drinking water is our most important foodstuff and as such needs to be handled responsibly. Drinking water that comes from German wa-terworks has a good or very good quality: Not only do the water utili-ties comply with the strict legal regulations in place, they also test the quality of their product regularly in their own labs – of their own ac-cord. However, this control function ends at the water meter in our homes. Other foodstuffs are projected by packaging – water simply flows through the pipes of our own homes. Only if these are free from contamination, bacteria and germs can perfect quality drinking water be guaranteed. Wolfgang Burchard, spokesman of the Blue Responsibility initiative, advises people to have the quality of their water checked regularly. He says, “Many German citizens simply take it for granted that water comes from the tap. A natural fact. What many people don’t know is that home owners and landlords too are responsible for maintaining the quality of our drinking water. The water supply piping in buildings – between the water meter and the tap – constitutes the main risks.”
New information platform on drinking water
In order to raise people’s awareness of the responsible use and quality of drinking water in a country with ample water supplies such as Germany, the Blue Responsibility initiative developed an online in-formation portal, which can be found at www.trinkwasser-wissen.net. With its easy-to-navigate design, the website provides a whole host of useful information and tips for consumers on using the precious re-source responsibly. A short film entitled “Trinkwasserqualität – Hauseigentümer in der Pflicht” (The Quality of our Drinking Water – Responsibilities of Homeowners) rounds out the range of online features. Essentially the new platform addresses such relevant questions as who in a household is responsible for clean drinking water, or what are landlords’ obligations as regards ensuring a good water quality. “We have created trinkwasser-wissen.net so as to provide consumers with useful guidelines that will enable them to preserve and maintain the outstanding quality of our drinking water,” explains Wolfgang Burchard, spokesman of the Blue Responsibility initiative.