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July 10, 2009
Freedman raises awareness
Young activist limits intake to promote water conservation.
REBECA KUROPATWA
Winnipeg's Kevin Freedman is a self-described activist, who wanted to do something to put water on the forefront of people's minds.
Freedman has already made his mark in the international arena. For his time spent in Indonesia as a human rights defender and his relief work following the May 2006 earthquake in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, Freedman received the YMCA Canada Peace Award.
With water conservation awareness as his most recent goal, Freedman conducted an experiment throughout the month of June, living on 25 litres of water per day for all of his water needs (bathing, laundry, dishes, drinking and cooking). He did this to raise awareness about local and global water issues, and also collected pledges to raise funds for UNICEF Canada.
"Water is important and something we can't live without," said Freedman. "It gets a little publicity, but not nearly as much as I think it should. Of all the environmental concerns we have to worry about, this is probably the most important.
"Many people in the world live on very little water or travel long distances just to procure it."
In May, Freedman came up with the idea for the Water as a Right Conservation Challenge.
"I started wondering what the absolute minimum of water was I could actually live on – keeping in mind how much water I normally use, and how I could drastically reduce that," he said. Freedman decided on 25 litres, half his body weight.
Ratna Ningrum, Freedman's girlfriend, who moved to Winnipeg last December, also did the one-month challenge, but, as Freedman describes it, while he "severely" restricted his water use, Ningrum "drastically" (less dramatically) restricted hers. Between the two of them, Freedman estimated that they lived on 60-70 litres of water per day for all of June. According to Environment Canada, the average Canadian used 329 litres of water per day in 2004.
While on the one-month challenge, Freedman said there were only three things he had to keep aware of – showering, using the toilet and washing laundry. These made up 75-80 percent of his daily water use.
Freedman said that, along the way, he learned little tricks that others shared with him and he discovered some on his own.
"Instead of taking a shower, I washed myself with a cloth," said Freedman. "This saved about 100 litres of water. I washed my laundry by hand and re-used the water to flush the toilet (and tried to limit myself to one flush a day). It didn't really take as much effort as I initially thought it would."
Freedman said he has been passionate about environmental causes all his life.
"Maybe that's because my father is cheap," he said with a laugh, "so I grew up not liking the idea of unnecessary waste."
Freedman's sister, now pursuing her master's degree in sustainable education, has also been an inspiration to him. And, following high school, Freedman went on a Birthright Israel trip, where he was very interested in learning about how Israel could not sustain itself without its irrigation system and choice of sustainable crops.
"In Israel, water is the biggest issue, besides politics and the economy," he said. "They really know what they're doing there. They don't have a choice."
Freedman also lived in Melbourne, Australia, for one summer: "I was surprised to find even in a wealthy country like Australia, the government was telling people – during really hot weather – to conserve the amount of water they used."
Naturally, Freedman learned a lot about water conservation and waste in the course of his research for the June challenge.
"Each time a person runs water from a faucet, waiting for it to get hot (for about one minute), that uses about eight to 10 litres of water," said Freedman. "The more water we use, the more water gets mixed in with the stuff in the sewers, the less fresh, clean water we have later on and the more infrastructures that need to be built to treat or desalinate water."
Freedman said he wants to get people interested in water issues.
"Seeing that someone can reduce their water use by over 90 percent of what the average Canadian uses and still be clean, healthy and hygienic might mean people can see themselves easily enough knocking off 10 or 20 percent of their water use without discomfort," said Freedman.
Freedman is thinking about turning the one-month challenge into an annual event. "Doing this again, and encouraging others to reduce their water use – even by five or 10 percent – that would make a really big impact," said Freedman, who plans to continue using less water than he did prior to his June challenge, but more than 25 litres.
Many experts, conveyed Freedman, believe that water is the 20th century's oil. "It's what people will be fighting over," he said.
"In Canada, water is very important, being the third-largest fresh water source after Brazil and Russia. There may come a time when other countries will need to rely on us for water. We can be water stewards. If we have water we don't need, we can share it, and be an example to other countries that can do the same."
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg-based freelance writer.
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