Finally I’m done
A shower longer than six minutes — how fun!!!
Taking 5–6 minute showers was definitely challenging and I have learned that I have a lot of willpower. It felt so rewarding to have saved 302 minutes and 494 gallons of water in only four weeks. If everyone at my school did this experiment — somehow — our school with 667 students would save* 201,434 minutes total (around 140 days) and the would save 329,498 gallons of water in just four weeks!!! In DC, with a population of 672,228 people, if everyone did my project* we would save 203,012,856 minutes (around 140,981 days) and 332,080,632 gallons of water. Imagine if the entire US did my project* we would save 98,814,400,000 minutes (around 68,621,111 days) and 162,636,800,000 gallons of water. Think of all the other activities we could do with all that time.
According to USGS, the US uses 80–100 gallons of water per day. Based on this value, the US uses around 15,456,000,000,000 gallons of water in four weeks (the same duration as my project). Based on the calculations above, the single act of taking shorter showers would reduce US water usage by 2%.
Sadly, I do not think I will continue this project but I think I have truly learned the importance of conserving water. I will continue to try to take shorter showers when I can, however, I think since I have done very well at being a strict vegetarian for almost three years, I might try to be a flexible vegan.
One thing that would have helped me a lot during my DOT would have been my new Sphynx razor in pink (great dry razor!!!). It is thoughts like these that I now have as a result of my increased awareness about saving time in the shower.
*if they had the same baseline and results as me
