Consider living with a limited allowance of daily water (60 litters for instance).

From today, for another 14 days, my mission which consists of living with only 60 liters of water a day begins. I would also like to take advantage of this “challenge” to further investigate the issue of wasteful drinking water and why not, try to change some of my family’s and my bad habits or at least to be more aware of them.

First of all, when I decided to undertake this experience, I had no idea how much a person’s average daily consumption of water was and how limited 60 liters of water could be. For this reason, I first decided to do a research and get a clear and precise idea of ​​how much water we use, on what occasions and times of the day.

I discovered that every Italian consumes an average of 130 to 140 liters of drinking water a day, with peaks that reach even 300 liters. This figure, in reality, can vary depending on the region, the climate or simply the way of life of each of us. What we consume is only minimally used for food purposes: drinking and use in the preparation and cooking of food is only 3.5%. Almost the entire quantity, 96.5%, is used for personal hygiene, in sanitary ware and for everything concerning the cleaning of clothes, objects, means of transport, as well as of the house itself.

The percentages are not enough, however, to understand exactly how much margin of improvement I must foresee for the attainment of the 60 liters of water daily and therefore I had to look for the exact numbers. Washing dishes by hand: from 10 to 12 l per wash; dishwasher: from 25 to 40 l per wash; washing machine: 60/90 liters every wash; toilet discharge: from 10 to 12 l for each drain with traditional cassettes, from 3 to 6 l for each drain in the case of double-button drain cassettes; shower: 120l, 15–16l of water per minute; bathtub: about 150 l; tap open to maximum: 8 liters per minute.

These numbers scared me and the idea of ​​having to condense all the water consumption in just 60 liters seemed impossible. I thought of having to do a daily program in which to distribute my water consumption, I thought I could neglect the use of water for food purposes because, as anticipated, it is really minimal consumption, but also indispensable.