It’s the start of the new term and already there are exciting things on the horizon. This morning, you might have spotted a new and unusual addition to the Beacon House lobby, consisting of a shower with real running water, a greasy spoon-style dining table and a squeaky plastic cheeseburger.
Alongside the bizarre installation is a menu-style blackboard, which explains how different types of burger require drastically different amounts of water resources to produce, much of which becomes heavily polluted once used. This is crucially important in a time when vast swathes of our warming planet are experiencing unprecedented water shortages, and marine life is increasingly under threat of extinction by chemicals.
Most striking is the figure for the humble beef burger; the volume of water used to make a single one (including feeding and rearing the cattle) is in excess of 2,300 litres – the equivalent of sixty two five-minute showers! The statistics are followed by a simple question, addressed to all of us: to help combat the rising global problems of drought and water pollution, would you rather remain unwashed for eight weeks, or forego eating beef for just a single meal?
Do you want to help spread the message about the importance of making informed decisions about food? The shower is accompanied by its very own Snapchat geo-filter, accessible within Beacon House itself, and an official hashtag #DoYouWantDroughtWithThat.
Her Campus have had exclusive confirmation from the creators of the mysterious shower that this is the first in a series of thought-provoking installations on the theme of sustainability to pop up around campus – watch this space…