Water usage reaches 2.3 million litres per person

Monday 22 March 2010

The Netherlands uses the equivalent of 2.3 million litres of water per head of the population a year, almost twice the European average, according to calculations by the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

But some 89% of that is water used abroad to make products imported into the Netherlands, the WFN says.

For example, it takes 2,700 litres of water to produce one cotton t shirt.

The production of sesame seeds and oil (for animal feed), sunflower oil, fruit and cane sugar all requires large amounts of water, and the products are grown in areas where water is scarce, the organisation says in its report.

© DutchNews.nl

Readers' comments

Comments have been closed for this article.