Scrub-a-dub ... without the tub!

Do you need a bath? Hang on … do you REALLY need a bath? Do you need one every day? Could you skip a bath today, share your bath water, or have a shower instead? It’s Global Goals Week – time for thinking about children all around the world and how we can help to end global poverty. Can you imagine waking up before dawn to trek to the nearest water source, and then carrying a filled water container – without spilling it – and doing that every day? Women and children around the world, spend 200 million hours each day collecting water.

Your challenge this week is to avoid a bath, or two – save it as a special treat? A typical bath uses 80 litres of water! If you can find a 1 litre bottle around your home - fill it up, close your eyes and imagine 140 of them lined up – that’s how much water the average person in the UK uses EVERY day!!! Reducing our water consumption, whilst helping our own country manage its water provision after a very hot and dry summer, can also play its part in helping to combat climate change. Pumping, treating, delivering and disposing of cold water causes carbon emissions, on top of those resulting from heating the water.

The Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 aiming to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. There are 17 goals and they cover the major challenges we all face. Here is an animated 6 minute movie Introducing the Global Goals. How can we use our superpowers to help each other – and achieve these goals? Maybe before you watch the movie think what goals YOU would choose – and see how many of them matched the Global Goals. Here’s a starter for you – Goal 1 is ‘No Poverty’, Goal 6 is ‘Clean water and sanitation’, Goal 13 is ‘Climate Action’. BBC Bitesize gives a little more detail about each of the goals.

When you have saved water, helped to tackle climate change from your bathroom, and used your ‘superpowers’ to help achieve the ‘Climate Action’ Global Goal – don’t forget to HIT THE RED BUTTON and let us know!