Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Yours is the programme (also when it was Research File) I try hardest to catch, not always successfully ! The notion of a 'water footprint' is long overdue, especially in our part of Africa. I myself don't have running water, and rely wholly on collected rainwater, except for drinking water which I get from a neighbour's borehole, luckily not subject (yet) to pollution. So I know exactly how much I use for every purpose, and can say definitively that - in terms of direct usage at least - I use more on washing clothes than for anything else. I try to wear my clothes for a week, but all the same I use a good 200 litres a week on washing them. Necessary to rethink clothes, perhaps ? In South Africa's huge building programmes, there is usually no sign of gutters and tanks for the collection of rainwater, and it always shocks me. There is also much disapproval in the press of 'bucket toilets', so it also shocks me to realize that everyone is expecting to have flush toilets, and that the press is pushing them that way. What is most shocking of all, however, was merely mentioned in a somewhat throwaway remark made by that Water Footprint man. He said something along the lines that change could only come if everyone consumed less, but that this would cause economic problems. Indeed. Why is it that economic recovery from this 'world recession' can only happen if consumption increases ? Nobody seems to be asking what this will do to the planet, and if there is any alternative way for economies to recover. How can the current way of ordering economies possibly be sustainable ? Importantly, why does nobody seem to be discussing it ? Yours, Peta A. Jones, MSc, PhD