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By: Ido Bern - May 10, 2021
In most cases in Israel, the water that flows from the tap is completely safe and can be drunk without a second thought. Elsewhere around the world, however, this is not the case. According to the 2020 UN Global Water Development Report, around two-thirds of the global population experience severe water shortages for at least one month out of the year.
And even when water does reach the tap, it is not always safe to drink due to contamination – a widespread issue affecting roughly 500 million people worldwide.
In 2012 alone, an estimated 842,000 deaths from middle and low-income countries stemmed from contaminated drinking water.
“In the United States, for example, water pollution of various kinds leads to tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year, and the estimated cost of treating these diseases and infections is over $1 billion,” says Prof. Shlomo Sela of the Department of Food Science at the Volcani Center, Agricultural Research Organization at Rishon Lezion.
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