Some facts:

- 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water

- More than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation

- About 1.5 million children under the age of five die each year

- 443 million school days are lost because of water- and sanitation-related diseases

- Over 50 percent of malnutrition cases globally are associated with diarrhoea or intestinal worm infections.

- Over half the world's hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from illnesses linked to contaminated water.

- Around 90 percent of diarrhoea cases, which kill some 2.2 million people every year, are caused by unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene.

- Almost 900 million people lack access to safe drinking water, and an estimated 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation. South Asia (around 221 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (330 million) have the highest proportion of people living without basic sanitation.

- Industrial wastes, pesticides from agriculture, and tailings from mining also create serious health risks and threats to water resources, costing billions of dollars to monitor, much more to clean.

- Wastewater generates methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2). It also generates nitrous oxide, which is 310 times more powerful than CO2.

- It is estimated that in just a decade, wastewater-linked emissions of methane will rise by 25 percent and that of nitrous oxide by 50 percent.

- It takes three litres of water to produce one litre of bottled water and an half of liter of oil per one litr of water for transport, containers and publicity.