Beiruting News

With the Ice Bucket Challenge going viral worldwide, water scarcity has also come under the spotlight even in water abundant places such as Scotland, where a whole island was cut off from the water supply over the hashtag activism craze.

The so-called Ice Bucket Challenge launched in order to raise awareness for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has reached gigantic proportions across the social media sphere as friends nominate each other to a freezing dare. Once challenged, the person has 24 hours to complete the task or donate cash, if they chicken out.

Unfortunately, the amount of clean water that is being used to help those with ALS is decimating water supplies, as the recent example of Colonsay Island in Scotland shows.

Port Mor in Colonsay, Scotland, UK (image from Facebook Friends of Colonsay page)

Port Mor in Colonsay, Scotland, UK (image from Facebook Friends of Colonsay page)
The water supply to the Inner Hebridean island, with a population of around 135 people was automatically switched off at least five times over the weekend after more than 100 residents took the ice plunge over their heads. The water supply had to be manually switched back on again to allow its residents access to H20.

Scottish Water confirmed the switch off to water supply caused by the surge of the ASL challenge, highlighting that there was no shortage of water.

"This does not impact water supply to customers, however, an operative does then need to go to the works and power it back up again," the statement reads.

While ASL social media advocacy is helping raised much needed funds for research of the incurable disease, with many celebrities participating in the challenge, critics say such hashtag activism just wastes water.

"This is, quite frankly, an insult to the parts of the world that have little or no drinking water readily available," columnist Noah Frank said in a post on WTOP.com. "Hashtag activism is not real activism."