We Need to Save Water — Yesterday

Try This!!! → → →

Next time you wash your hands:

1. Put a giant pot in your kitchen sink and wash your hands over it so all the water falls into the pot and none escapes.
2. Wash your hands like you normally would.
3. Turn the water off, dry your hands.
4. Look into the pot.

How much water did you use? How much did you waste?

The other day, I did the same thing, and I was SHOCKED to see that the amount of water I used to wash my hands could fill at least half of my Brita Water Filter. I was shocked because I knew that I wash my hands at least 5 times a day and that all that water I ever used went straight down the drain and was, well, just…gone. It then made me think about all the people around the world who don’t have water like I do, who don’t have the ease of turning on a faucet and having a rush of clean water come out. I felt bad.

When you hear: “The Average American uses around 100 gallons of water a day”, it might not mean much to you. It didn’t mean much to me. We don’t know what that number means. But then I stopped to think about it for a second. Per Day.

I don’t even drink 1 gallon of water per day. That means approximately 99 gallons are being thrown away after a single use (if it is even truly used at all i.e. when we let the sink run, we aren’t even using that water). Think about purchasing an item and throwing it out the very next day — nobody does that right? So why do we do it with water? We do it because in our minds, water is infinite.

But it’s not.

Clean water is a privilege, and this is something we tend to forget.

I know realistically that we all must use some amount of water, but what it comes down to is the fact that we can use less water and we can do something with the ‘wastewater’ we’ve already used.

Yet in order to really feel and understand the stress for why we should do all this, I think it’s important to first understand how much water we actually have and where it comes from.

How do we get water?

We get water from lakes, ponds, and groundwater. After the water is first harvested, it goes through a heavy treatment process in a treatment plant. A typical water treatment process includes four stages:

1. Coagulation and Flocculation — Chemicals are added to the water. They bind with the dirt and dissolved particles, forming larger particles called floc.
2. Sedimentation — The floc is heavy, so it settles to the bottom of the tank.
3. Filtration — The clear water on top passes through filters composed of sand, gravel and charcoal to remove dissolved particles such as dust, parasites, bacteria, viruses and chemicals.
4. Disinfection — Chlorine or chloramine is added to kill parasites, bacteria, viruses and germs. Fluorine is added to prevent tooth decay.

Other chemicals are added when necessary. When the water has been properly treated, it is stored in a reservoir in which it can then pumped through underground pipes to our homes for use. Thank you to NPR.org for providing this information. Learn more about how we get our water here:

How Do We Get Our Drinking Water In The U.S.?

So how much treatable water do we have exactly? Take a look at this video:

Important & Super Informative Video — Please Watch Before You Continue Reading

Overall, the consensus from many sources including this one seems to be that while the Earth is made up of about 71% water, only 1% is actually accessible for us to drink and use. About 97% of Earth’s water is saltwater meaning that we cannot drink or use this for agriculture. Only 3% is freshwater that we could potentially use, but 2% of this is frozen up in glaciers and ice caps, so we are left with 1% to sustain humans and all other living creatures on Earth. 1%. Therefore, one reason to save water would be simply because we don’t have much of it to begin with and are running out quickly.

Another reason is to save energy and reduce greenhouse emissions that water treatment processes create. We learned about the treatment process above and it seems like a lot of energy and non-environmentally friendly chemicals are being used to treat the water. Now just imagine having to keep up with everyone’s water demands. 100 gallons per person, per day.

Take a look at the site below for additional reasons why we should save and re-use water:

10 Reasons Why We Should Not Waste Water - Green Planet Plumbing

Regarding one of the points on this site, I believe I found the report Green Planet Plumbing mentioned. See specifically Section 5 of The Carbon Footprint of Water:

This report answers the question: How does saving water help reduce greenhouse emissions? Because, “A large amount of energy is expended to supply, treat and use water, meaning that water-oriented strategies can result in significant reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.” (The Carbon Footprint of Water). A note from California: “Water is one of the few sectors in California’s economy where the same policies can serve both preventative and adaptive global climate change goals. Making more efficient use of water will reduce our demands on water resources and shrink the energy consumption associated with water conveyance, pumping, heating and treatment. California water policies can therefore help the State to adapt to the effects of climate change while also minimizing GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.” (California Air Resources Board noted in this report). The report continues in stating, “River Network now estimates that energy consumption related to this water use requires the equivalent of at least 521 million MWh of electricity. This figure is likely to grow as communities use up local, low-energy water supplies and are forced to supply water from greater distances or from nontraditional supplies. Unless water demand is curtailed, the energy and carbon emissions embedded in water will continue to grow, at the detriment of our climate and riparian resources” (The Carbon Footprint of Water).

I also came across another intriguing website called TheWorldCounts. Here is an eye-opening quote I really liked: “If we can be conscious of the products we buy and eat and choose less water intensive products we can make a difference. If manufacturers know that the consumers care, they might make some efforts to reduce their water usage during production. If the USA for example, reduced their meat intake by half, their annual water costs will be reduced by 256 cubic kilometers! How much is that? That’s like filling the empire state building with water 28 times every hour. That’s a big saving”. A huge saving indeed.

I liked this website so much that I e-mailed them and someone from TheWorldCounts actually responded, answering my questions as to where they source their data from and explaining that they created this site to “to raise awareness and spark debate” on world problems like global warming, the lack of sustainability and depletion of our natural resources— hey!, just like the goals of this thesis project! I would highly recommend checking out their site here:

Average Daily Water Usage

Remember, water is a FINITE resource!!

Now that you care about saving and recycling water…

Here’s How YOU CAN Help:

• Wash your hands and shower on a lower water setting — super simple.
• Don’t take baths. Take shorter showers. On average, you use up 2 gallons of water per every minute you spend in the shower.
• Don’t run water when brushing, shaving, shampooing your hair etc. and only turn it on low when you’re ready to rinse!
• Save and re-use your wastewater (this means any water you have used, i.e. if you’re washing veggies, you can wash them over a large bowl and save that wastewater produced as fertilizer to water your plants or garden). It only takes a little more effort from you, but can save a whole lot!
• Fix leaks in all plumbing fixtures. Those drips add up. If you can’t fix it right away, get a bucket, collect the water to water your plants.
• Don’t run water when you’re hand-washing dishes.
• Check out this Consumer Reports article/video on what types of water-efficient appliances are available.

If you still don’t care about saving water and if you don’t want to save water for any of the reasons listed above, save water because it’ll save you MONEY. Your water bill won’t be as high, thus lowering your monthly cost.

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Thanks for reading! As always, please feel free to follow my posts and provide feedback and other resources that could help me out! My rule of thumb is to always keep an open mind. If I got a fact wrong, let me know. I am always looking to learn from experts in the industry as well as gain insights from those who are also very passionate about these topics! Start saving water today, stay safe and healthy!