On World Water Day, there’s been a lot of talk about the 783 million people who lack clean water and the fact that in Africa, women and children spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water.
The stats are heartbreaking and there are a host of organizations working to put an end to these water-related crises.
But there’s also a whole crop of H2O-oriented problems right here in the developed world that no one has yet to address on this critical awareness day. What about cash-strapped pool owners? The rain haters? And those poor dieters who struggle each and every day to stay hydrated to stave off hunger?
It's about time their voices were heard in the global water conversation.
Check out some plaguing first-world water issues below, then tweet your own with #FirstWorldWater and we'll add you to our slideshow. Together, we can raise some long-overdue awareness for these issues (and draw some extra attention to World Water Day).
Also, no fundraiser has been set up (yet) to ease these issues, but there is a way you can help people in the developing world get access to clean water. Learn more here.
I'd so much rather drink soda than water. #FirstWorldWater
I know I should be drinking eight cups of water a day, but a lot of the time, I can't help but just reach for a big, bubbly, caffeinated glass of Coke -- big enough to make Mike Bloomberg think I'm actually trying to drink myself to death.
Trying to get a cab in the rain is the worst. #FirstWorldWater
Sure, rain serves as a great excuse to curl up inside. But when I actually want to go somewhere, watching other sopping-wet pedestrians snag a cab as I'm getting pelted by droplets kind of makes me hate life.
Waiting for the bathroom sucks. #FirstWorldWater
Thirty-percent of the world's population doesn't have access to basic sanitation facilities, but when I'm doing the "pee-pee dance" while waiting on an impossibly long bathroom line at a concert or bar, I really hope I'm being counted in that statistic.
My neighbor's lawn looks so much more better than mine. #FirstWorldWater
My neighbor must be tending to her lawn in the middle of the night because I'm out there pretty much every day dousing my grass in water and it doesn't look anything like her verdant tufts of greenery growing on the other side of the fence.