Clean Water For All Brochure: Facilitator s Guide

Clean Water For All Brochure: Facilitator s Guide

How To Use The Brochure The Clean Water For All brochure can be used for organizing, trainings or workshops to help inspire personal and community change in the water system. Print it double sided, in color, ideally in size 11x17. It is designed to fold into a brochure, with Clean Water For All on the front page, the Activity in the middle, and the Quick Facts on the back page. The inside unfolds into a full-length poster of our water cycle. There are 5 major components to the brochure: 1. What s the Problem With Our Water System? On the top of the poster, this section identifies some of the ways that our current water system is environmentally destructive, inefficient, and unhealthy for communities. 2. Working With the Water Cycle. This section illustrates our current water system and points out opportunities to interrupt it and work more closely with nature. The right side of the graphic demonstrates how rainfall currently goes through urban areas and out into bodies of water. The left side shows how water comes to us in our households and flows out into local bodies of water, which evaporate back into clouds. The action steps around the water system express the collective actions that can be taken to fix our water system. 3. Sustainable Solutions. The photos and information in this section offer real-life examples of how we can begin to build green water infrastructure in our own communities, while reaping benefits in the form of jobs, health and clean water. 4. Activity: Take Personal and Collective Action. The activity is designed for an individual to use the water brochure to think critically about the problems with our current water system and the ways in which we can take action both on a personal and community level to green the system. First complete the activity on your own, then bring a group together using the Detailed Facilitator Notes below to lead the longer version of this activity for a fun, interactive community meeting or house party. 5. Quick Facts. The content in this section will arm you with critical facts and statistics as well as exciting solutions you can share with family and friends to engage them in this important issue. page 2

Activity: Take Personal and Collective Action The activity is meant to be both educational and motivational. Once you complete the activity on the brochure yourself, you can use this guide to facilitate the activity for a group. Use this for trainings and workshops, green house parties, student groups, or with family and friends. The activity is designed to get participants thinking about solutions to our water crisis and identify specific actions that they can take in their personal lives and in their communities. Facilitator Notes for Group Activity Instructions 1. Prepare Materials: Download enough brochures for a group, and two brochures for yourself. Unfold one brochure into the poster of the water cycle. Fold or cut another brochure so that the Average American Water Footprint pie graph is showing. Hang the poster of the water cycle next to the Average American Water Footprint pie graph, so that the group can see both side by side. Give 2 post-it notes to each person in the group. Hang up 1 piece of butcher paper (optional). Download this facilitation guide and have the Action Steps handy. 2. Ask the group to review the brochure, and each identify 2 facts that surprise them and 1 solution that they are excited about. Ask them to share with the group. 3. Next, the facilitator reads the Action Steps from this guide, or writes them on the piece of butcher paper. As you read them to the group, ask everyone to write two Action Steps on their post-it notes: one personal action (ex. eat less meat) and one community action (ex. plant a roof garden). They should choose Action Steps that are meaningful for them. 4. Ask the group to break off into pairs and discuss their Action Steps with their partner, answering the following questions: How will your Action Steps be beneficial to yourself and your community? What will happen in the water system if this Action Step is not taken? 5. Reconvene as a group. Ask each person to place their post-it notes with Action Steps either on the Average American Water Footprint pie graph, or on the Working With the Water Cycle poster, whichever is appropriate for their Action Step. Facilitator writes any remaining Action Steps that have not been chosen on post-it notes and places them on the pie graph or poster. 6. Now take a look at all of the Action Steps around the water cycle and the pie graph. These are tools we can use to fix our water system on a personal and community level. 7. Discuss: How can our personal habits make an impact on our water system? How can we mobilize our community to push for better water infrastructure to ensure clean and abundant water for all? page 3

Action Steps These are examples of actions that an individual or community can take to green our water system. Use these action steps for the group activity. Don t use your toilet as a trash can. Also, if it s yellow, let it mellow. (27% of indoor water is used for toilet flushing. You can save 4-6 gallons of water each time you do not flush) Shorten your shower by a minute or two and save up to 150 gallons/month. Install water-efficient showerheads and faucets at home and ask your school to install efficient showerheads in the locker room. (A water-saver showerhead can save up to 5 gallons of water per shower) Turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth or shaving. (This can save 3-5 gallons per day) Fix leaky faucets, toilets and pipes immediately. (Fixing a leaking toilet can save up to 106 gallons of water per day, and fixing a leaking faucet can save up to 132 gallons of water per year) Eat less meat, more veggies. (One pound of beef takes 1800 gallons of water to produce. Eating less meat and more veggies is better for the environment and your health) Eat less fast food. (A fast food lunch hamburger, fries, and soda uses 1,500 gallons of water. By eating less fast food, you will conserve water and be healthier) Drink less soda and milk, and more water. (It takes 10 gallons of water to make one can of soda and 880 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk. Drinking more water instead will keep you healthy and hydrated while conserving water at the same time) Drink tea instead of coffee. (It takes 880 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of coffee, but it takes 128 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of tea. You can save 752 gallons of water each time you choose tea over coffee) Skip bottled water and use a re-useable water bottle. Encourage your friends to do the same and encourage your school to stop selling plastic water bottles. (You can save 1.85 gallons each time you drink water from a reusable bottle instead of buying a plastic water bottle. You are also conserving resources by not using plastic, and supporting clean tap water as opposed to private bottled water companies) page 4

If you re concerned about the quality of your tap water: Check out the Environmental Working Group s website for information about what is in your water: http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/home Use a filter: http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/executive-summary Advocate for more pollution prevention. (Water utilities spend 19 times more on water treatment chemicals each year than the federal government spends on protecting lakes and rivers from pollution in the first place) Plant a vegetable garden or fruit trees. Also plant native, drought-resistant plants. (You can grow food while allowing rain to naturally absorb into the ground. Native drought-resistant plants require less water to be healthy and also provide habitat for native wildlife) Advocate for more green space in your neighborhood. (Green space has many environmental and social benefits such as providing recreational space, cooling urban areas, community gardening space and also absorbs rainwater runoff) Install a greywater system in your home, workplace, school, or community center. (Greywater systems recycle water from baths, showers, and washing machines in your home to be used for watering your lawn and toilet flushing) Sweep, don t hose down driveways, sidewalks, gutters, and patios. (A typical garden hose uses 290 gallons of water per hour) Plant a roof garden or install a cistern on a roof. Use the captured rainwater to water a garden. (Grow vegetables, fruits and herbs, beautify urban buildings and houses, while providing space for rain water to absorb into naturally) Use compost instead of artificial fertilizers and avoid using harmful pesticides on lawns. (Pesticides and chemicals from fertilizers leech into our groundwater, contaminating our drinking water and polluting our rivers, lakes and streams) Take paints, solvents, cleaners and pesticides to local hazardous collection sites. Never dump them on your lawn, or down the storm drain, sink or gutter. (When our gutters and drains are clogged with garbage and chemicals, this also contaminates our drinking water and local rivers, lakes and streams as this contaminated water goes through our drainage system and into open water sources) Only run your dishwasher and laundry machine for a full load of dishes or clothing. (And save 300-800 gallons of water per month) page 5

Check cars for fluid leaks and recycle motor oil. (Reduce the amount of pollutants that are picked up by rainwater and end up in our water supplies) Buy fewer material goods, as everything takes water to make. Buy re-usable products instead of new ones, and recycle all plastic, glass, metals and paper. Email your U.S. Representative and Senator and urge them to invest in our water infrastructure currently in need of $31 billion annually in upgrades. (http://www.contactingthecongress.org) Make producers of bottled water take responsibility for safe disposal and fair recycling of water bottles (http://www.productpolicy.org/) Find out the source of your drinking water that supplies your home. Likewise, know the local body of water your storm water flows into. (Contact your local municipality or use the EPA s site: http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm) Find out what water restoration projects exist in your community and volunteer for a hands-on clean up project, or start one yourself! Reach out to your local water utility and invite them to come speak to your school about water pollution, and water conservation and efficiency. Calculate your personal water footprint here, and use the action steps to reduce it: (http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=cal/waterfootprintcalculator) Spread the word! Educate your friends and family about ways to reduce their personal water footprints. page 6