The Eden Springs UK Team Blog

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Why do people waste water?

Posted in Charity, Community, Water Delivery on by .

Wasting Water - Why?

It’s distressing when hundreds of gallons of water go to waste while some individuals can’t find a good enough or safe enough supply for them and their families. While wasted water can’t generally be redirected to those that have a greater need, it should make us value the importance of our water and think about those who don’t have such easy access.

People in the developed world are used to heading to the water cooler or turning on a tap and using water freely from a limitless supply. Often only when it directly affects the size of their bill do some people think about the amount of water that they waste (a situation seen with water meters).

What a lack of water means

Only when a minor catastrophe strikes and the water supplies are turned off for an hour or two do people realise how much they need water for drinking, for preparing food and sanitation purposes. Not being able to drink a glass of water or flush the toilet at the moment it is required can be quite a surprise.

At the same time, in other parts of the world, some people spend the majority of their day searching for safe drinking water and if they can’t find some their family are in crisis. Each year, millions of people die from preventable diseases which are caused by lack of contact with clean water and sufficient sanitation. Many of these deaths involve young children.

In particularly difficult areas, groundwater can be completely depleted. Rivers and lakes can dry up at different times of the year when many people are depending upon the water from these areas as irrigation to help grow their food, because we know that plants only grow through feeding, watering and sunlight.

The developed world often fails to understand the ramifications of water scarcity and as climates change around the world, suitable sources of water can become even more difficult to find.

For every person that allows gallons of water to flow down the sink until it becomes warm enough to wash their cutlery and crockery, many people are expected to walk miles every day to collect insufficient water and return it to their home.

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Progress and challenges

Incredibly, in 2013, around 880 million people do not have access to clean water, regularly. Around 2.7 billion people don’t have sanitation to acceptable standards. With the world’s population expected to rise from 7 to 10 billion by the end of this century, the wastage of water in some areas is more than just a major worry.

Too many people around the world are using contaminated water for their cooking and drinking. A further lack of water makes many people fail to look after their personal hygiene sufficiently. There are many preventable diseases like cholera and dysentery that should have been eradicated from our planet by now, but illnesses like trachoma still exist, having already blinded 6 million people.

The demand for water continues to grow at the same time the groundwater depletion has doubled since 1960. The United Nations General assembly has agreed that everyone on the planet should have access to the necessary 20 to 50 L of water that is required for each person every day. The difference between access to good quality water and poor water hygiene standards can be the difference between life and death.

If everyone were able to stop wasting two or three litres of water a day, perhaps one day we won’t need to talk about water wastage ever again.

Wasting Water - Why?

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Should you drink as much coffee as you want?

Posted in Coffee, Health on by .

Should You Drink as Much Coffee as You Want?

A number of coffee studies from major universities and institutes have recently reached similar conclusions: They suggest that you can drink as much coffee as you want without any particular health issues being raised. The only suggestion is for people to cut out the last cup of coffee each day if sleeping is a problem. So is there a limit to how many cups of coffee you can drink in a day?

Drink more coffee for a healthy lifestyle

The Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University suggests that you can drink as much coffee as you like so long as it doesn’t keep you awake. The thought behind this is that the coffee is healthy and cannot do you any harm, and might help you achieve a healthy lifestyle.

The American Medical Association (cited in the New York Times) recommends that a moderate amount of coffee drinking won’t harm your health, providing all other aspects of your lifestyle are healthy and good for you. They further go on to suggest that coffee drinking might prevent Alzheimer’s disease by protecting your liver. The size of the studies that they’ve carried out is significant. They recommend that a moderate amount of caffeine is good for everyone because you can consider it as a nutrient.

Harvard’s School of Public Health and the Department of Nutrition has found that coffee drinkers are at a lower risk of suffering from type II diabetes than non-coffee drinkers. Caffeine increases the levels of blood glucose which helps increase the resistance of insulin. Twenty years of studies have shown an 8% decrease in the risk of type II diabetes for women while men show a 4% reduction.

For 30 years from the 1980s, data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study followed a large group of people including 80,000 women and 40,000 men. The data is seen as reliable even though it was self reported. Although sugar sweetened beverages do increase the risk of diabetes slightly, it is the preference for sugar and cream that increases the risk of danger. They have found no difference whatsoever between the consumption of regular coffee and decaf in the health of the study groups.

4 or 10 cups a day?

The studies show that a number of ingredients in coffee offer biological benefits. They also confirmed that there is no association between moderate coffee consumption and heart failure. During their experiments, while many people drank 4 cups of coffee a day the beneficial effects did not decrease when people increased their consumption beyond 10 cups a day.

The studies also developed ideas that caffeine works well as a pain reliever, because many people who worked in offices and usually suffered from back, neck and shoulder problems, experienced less pain when they consumed more coffee.

A Japanese study of 550 adults, drinking both coffee and green tea, saw a reduction in the risks associated to coronary artery disease, stroke and type II diabetes.

The Harvard School of Public Health follow-up study found that coffee offers a high level of protection to some types of prostate cancer, particularly amongst people who drank six or more cups of coffee per day.

The American Society for Nutrition, which studied 500,000 adults, reported that people drinking a high dosage of coffee regularly were effectively fighting colorectal cancer.

It would appear that many sensible universities and studies are proving that a good level of coffee consumption certainly won’t kill you. In fact, it may help you live longer.

Get your daily caffeine fix from one of our business coffee machines.

Image credit: Epsos_de

UK coffee week 2013 – What’s it all about?

Posted in Charity, Coffee, Community on by .

uk coffee week

This year UK Coffee Week ran from the 22–28 April and brought together a variety of product offerings, activities and public events (including the London Coffee Festival) – all in aid of Project Waterfall.

Project Waterfall aims to improve the lives of those living in African coffee-growing countries by giving them better access to clean water through hygiene and sanitisation. Sickness from unclean water is a constant threat for places like Tanzania, where only 54% of the population have access to a clean water source. Even then, these people sometimes have to walk up to 2 hours a day just to reach a clean source of water. So really, this week is in aid of a fantastic cause.

Coffee@Work

UK Coffee Week launched in 2011 and has grown considerably since then. In 2012 over 300 thousand people were involved from supporters and sponsors to fundraisers and organisers. The flagship initiative of the UK Coffee Week is Coffee@Work, which encourages workplaces who enjoy coffee as part of their working day to fundraise for Project Waterfall – the workplace initiative is sponsored by popular coffee brand Kenco.

In addition to the Coffee@Work initiative there are a variety of other ways to fundraise during the week; consumers are asked to make a voluntary 5p donation when they purchase coffee at participating vendors, participating coffee operators offer to match consumer donations as well as making their own corporate donations and participating venues offer spaces to hold fundraising events such as bake sales and karaoke nights.

Coffee@Work ties in nicely with Eden Springs’s WellBeing and Energy@Work initiatives, which stress the value of drinks and beverages at work for motivation, energy and health.

London’s coffee fest

UK Coffee Week happily coincides with the London Coffee Festival which takes place from the 25–28 April this year. The Festival celebrates London’s thriving coffee scene and brings together coffee enthusiasts, professional baristas, independent coffee shop owners and coffee experts to share their experiences and love of coffee. There are also coffee/food matchings, a scientific coffee lab, demonstrations and live entertainment throughout the festival.

You can get the ball rolling for 2014′s UK Coffee Week by organising a Kenco coffee machine for your office and requesting a Coffee@Work sign-up pack. Don’t just let coffee be your guilty pleasure – make it count!

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Active? Why you should start drinking before you get thirsty

Posted in Health, Well Being at Work on by .

Why You Should Start Drinking before You Get Thirsty

When you’re physically active on a hot day and don’t have the opportunity to take on sufficient water, you might notice that your calf muscles develop a cramp. If you continue the muscle will develop an extremely annoying trembling feeling. If you’re lucky enough to take a few sips of water at this stage, the cramp might disappear for a very short period of time but when it does return your breathing might resemble that of someone having an asthma attack. Despite the hot weather, you might start to feel a chill, which will inevitably be followed by dizziness and if you don’t stop running immediately, you could lose consciousness.

These are all the signs that are associated with an electrolyte and fluid imbalance. For those being physical for long periods this can be dangerous to your health, which is why you must develop a regime to drink sufficient water before you become thirsty. Prevention is much easier than the cure.

The difference between professional and amateur athletes

One of the major differences between professional and amateur athletes is not about the amount of money that the athletes receive, but about the way they understand the science of the way that their body works. Professional athletes understand water loss during a race and will hydrate their body sufficiently before a race so that the body is able to function all the way to the finishing line.

Amateur athletes will fail to consume enough water before and during a race and you will see them rocking-and-rolling as they try to complete the final push or last mile.

When you feel thirsty, you will already have lost about 3% of your body’s water, causing you to be extremely dehydrated. This equates to reducing your best performance by over 15%. This will lose you the marathon or long distance track race.

To put this into perspective, if someone running a 10k is 2% dehydrated, the race will take them almost 3 minutes longer to complete. Dehydration can reach the stage of becoming life-threatening when between 10% and 20% of a person’s body weight is lost.

Making sure urine is the right colour

Taking on a lot of water before or during a race is not productive. Your body prefers to sip fluids gradually throughout the day. If all other aspects of your health are in perfect condition, your urine will flow as a very pale yellow colour if you are fully hydrated.

Be aware that any caffeine or soda bubbles in what you consume can reduce the amount of fluid in your body.

Experts suggest that you need to gradually take in around 16 ounces of plain water at least an hour before exercising. It is better if this water is taken in gradually, than in one quick drink. That’s because you need to maintain a fluid balance during the exercise as you will lose sweat, which will become more rapid the longer you exercise.

Where possible, your body will benefit from drinking 6 to 7 ounces of fluid, roughly every 20 minutes of exercise. For an amateur exercise, this is quite easy to achieve, but not for a professional athlete in the middle of a 10,000 m race.

When you start to feel thirsty, your body is telling you that it is already dehydrated. It takes good practice and planning to ingest sufficient water before you begin exercising while still avoiding feeling bloated.

 

Make sure you always have enough to drink with our Eden Springs bottled water and water dispensers.

 

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Meningitis Research Foundation say thanks for Eden water donation

Posted in Charity, Community on by .

meningitis research foundation

As part of our ongoing and very popular ‘free water for fundraisers’ initiative we donated bottled water for a couple of the Meningitis Research Foundation’s fantastic fundraising events:

A huge thank you to Eden Springs for generously donating 200 bottles of water for use at two major fundraising events. Our Grand Ball held in London in March raised £37,815 and our annual student collection in April raised a further £31,220.19. The money raised from both these events will allow us to continue our vital work into the prevention, detection and treatment of meningitis and septicaemia and support those affected by them.

Mike Taylor, Head of Fundraising
Meningitis Research Foundation 

Very impressive fundraising figures I’m sure you’ll agree! Well done to everybody involved and we’re delighted to have helped such a great cause.

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How good water can reduce world cholera levels

Posted in Health on by .

Aerial view of Haiti

Eden Springs are involved in charity and water projects around the UK and the globe. As part of this work we’re looking at humanitarian issues caused by poor water quality. 

The people of Haiti have suffered terrible, desperate times in the past decade. Of the 200 or so countries in the world, Haiti is usually listed as one of the poorest alongside Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In just two years, a cholera epidemic has killed over 8,000 people and infected almost 700,000, according to the country’s Ministry of Health. Experts suggest that use of good water, rather than vaccination, can reduce cholera outbreaks.

Haiti’s personal problems

During 2008, Haiti was hit by four different hurricanes, dropping immense amounts of rain across an already financially ravaged nation. With 98% of their forest cover lost to deforestation, flood waters ran rapidly into all of the major towns and villages across the country. Many people were simply listed as missing. Almost 107,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. And 8% of the population was greatly affected by the rains which ruined 70% of Haiti’s crops.

With several hundred thousand Haitians living in makeshift tent camps, the earthquakes of January 2010 killed almost 50,000 people. Now several more are at risk from cholera.

What is cholera?

For the majority of the world, cholera is an almost forgotten disease, but in poorer countries, it has not yet been eradicated.

When a patient is diagnosed with cholera, their small intestine will be infected, causing a dreadful watery diarrhoea and terrible vomiting. The transmission of cholera is usually from drinking poor water or eating food which has probably been contaminated by the faeces of another infected person.

The government’s response

The Haitian government, being one of the poorest in the world, has been reliant on financial aid to guide them through their many difficulties in recent years. From 2013, they have launched a £1.5 billion plan to eradicate cholera from the country.

Haiti has a population of around 10 million people, but has twice as many people affected by the disease as the entire 1 billion population of Africa.

Their aim is to increase people’s access to potable water from less than 70% of the population to 85%. They further intend to increase the proper use of water and flushing facilities to toilets and latrines from under 30% to 90%. While they are reinforcing education and infrastructure, they hope to achieve proper healthcare for 80% of the population, up from the current 54%.

The intention to promote clean water and proper sanitation is vitally important to this nation, but there is also an urgent need to ensure that financial aid reaches the government. Of the previous $200 million raised to battle cholera only 3% of those funds went to the government in Haiti; while the UN and its agencies received almost 24% of the money.

According to current research, the Haitian government has created model environments for over 500 local communities. This has proved that clean water and the education of good hygienic methods are much more effective at reducing the spread of the cholera disease than using funds to continue a vaccination campaign.

With just 150,000 vaccinations remaining for the Haitians, pushing forward their plans for clean water and high-quality waste hygiene can’t happen quickly enough.

Image: Leyna Hutchinson/Flickr

Celebrating World Water Day

Posted in Charity, Community, Environment, Health on by .

World Water Day is held on 22 March every year to celebrate fresh water, reaffirm its importance, and help develop the sustainable management of water resources across the world.

As a beverage company we’re clearly heavily involved in water and hydration, and our charity efforts extend into helping provide drinking water to Tanzania through the PeopleHelpPeople – One World initiative as well as helping charity fundraisers with free water closer to home in the UK.

Access to clean and safe drinking water is correctly seen as an important human right, and the day aims to increase awareness of the difficulties huge numbers face in accessing this vital resource. Millions of people across the globe are forced to drink dirty water daily in order to survive, causing disease, ill-health and suffering.

The day has been celebrated since 1993, following a United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recommendation the previous year. The theme for 2013′s event is the “International Year of Water Cooperation”.

You can follow World Water Day initiative on Twitter with #waterday, or see pictures and donate at waterday.org. 

 

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How to change your kids’ drinking habits (from fizzy drinks to water)

Posted in Health on by .

You can’t blame a child for thinking that sweet fizzy or soda drinks taste better than water. Adults may think differently, but most children will reach for the sweet option every time.  With so many soft drinks, energy drinks and sports drinks being marketed to children and adults alike it’s not surprising that many people are picking up one of these drinks without realising the possible effect on their health; not just now but over the long term.

The attitude that drinking one extra energy drink now won’t make any real difference appears sensible until you realise that those who make the same excuse every single day of the week and will soon be overloaded with an excess of supplements, manufactured E-numbers and unnatural colourings.

A habit can turn into an addiction

Children soon forget how many cans of sugar filled soda they have consumed during the course of the day, and have no idea over a full week. And while you would think that fruit drinks would be healthy, many of these also contain high levels of sugar. That means that parents have to regulate consumption of these too.

It’s time to show kids what’s in the bottle

The key to moving your children’s drinking habits from soda to water is to physically show them what’s in the bottle. If you can have your child agree that five spoonfuls of sugar in every soda drink would be unhealthy, when you physically pour out 7 to 9 spoonfuls of sugar into one pile in front of them, they will quickly see how much sugar they are taking into their system every time they guzzle down a bottle of sugar packed soda.

By using every child’s favourite educational toy, the Internet, you can quickly show them how the chemicals that they are consuming can cause a range of diseases. When they physically see the effects and problems of type II diabetes, tooth decay, skin problems, cancer and premature ageing, they might be throw out the soda drinks and reach for the water.

Studies have shown that when children drink at least one soda drink a day, they have a 30% greater chance of gaining excess stomach weight. Many sugary carbonated drinks will rapidly reduce calcium levels which makes people particularly susceptible to osteoporosis.

Fruit drinks can be healthy for most people if they are diluted to reduce the high sugar intake. If you gradually change the mix from mostly soft drink to mostly water, your children’s taste buds will gradually get used to the new flavour.

Consider plumbed in water coolers to provide healthy water drinks at home or in the office.

 

The story of a coffee hoax: running out of coffee

Posted in Coffee on by .

The Story Of A Coffee Hoax

Why is it that some people persist in stories featuring doom and gloom while other people will always look for the best possible result? If you believe the stories from the glass half empty people then your days of drinking coffee are severely numbered, because the world is going to run out of coffee beans by the year 2080. Is this story just a hoax to sell newspaper headlines or could there be some truth in it?

Arabica plants and beans

Arabica beans are found in around 70% of the world’s coffee; this is great news if the Arabica plant can grow well but they are susceptible to climate change as well as the many pests and diseases that are attracted to the plant.

Without Arabica, coffee would be harder to locate and even when you found a suitable brand it would be much more expensive.

From the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, researchers have compiled a report with the Environment and Coffee Forest Forum in Addis Ababa. The British and Ethiopian researchers have been considering how climate change might possibly change the land where Arabica plants currently grow. They are predicting, that even with the best possible results, that there will be a 38% reduction in locating good quality land that can grow the Arabica plants, by the year 2080. If the climate change goes further than expected, the coffee bean growing plants will show losses of between 90 and 100%. The study suggests that the plant could become extinct.

Brazil, Colombia and Ethiopia move about 100 million bags of coffee, worth over $16 billion every year, with most coffee made from the Arabica beans. The plants grow best between 18° C and 21° C. Where it is hotter, the plants will ripen too quickly which drastically affects the taste. Alternately, they may grow too slowly.

The study suggests that if the large-scale deforestation of the highland forests of Ethiopian and South Sudan continue, the results for growing Arabica plants could be even worse.

Looking after the other 30% of the world’s coffee beans

While the study is intended to take up newspaper and Internet headlines, experts suggest that there is plenty of time to change the diversity of the plants so that they can live under different circumstances. Scientists are consistently finding ways to genetically modify plants and vegetables, so a change in the plants will aid their continued survival. Growers can always look towards wild species that have developed a natural resistance to either global warming or the pests and diseases that might affect the plants.

Alternatively, governments will look at the other 30% of the world’s coffee plants and beans and find ways that they can replace any losses of the Arabica plants and beans.

So no, it’s not a hoax, but you don’t need to worry just yet. With 50 years left to solve the problem, coffee growers and scientists have plenty of time to ensure that your office coffee won’t disappear.

Image: Richie Yamashiroya/Flickr

A thank you letter for our water donation

Posted in Bottled Water, Charity, Community on by .

thankyou water donation

Eden Springs were delighted to receive the following thank you letter from the Birmingham Community Gospel Choir in recognition of our donation of water to their uplifting ‘Gospel Goes Charity’ event during November. We always love to hear positive feedback from our free water for fundraisers initiative and even better if we can see some pictures of the water going to good use!

If you’d like to apply for free water for your charity event go to our Facebook page.