No More Long Showers!
How to make your life more sustainable
Something as simple as taking shorter showers may not seem like it can make a big impact but that simple change to your daily life has a very large and positive effect on the world. Hopefully, this article will convince you to take shorter showers too!
If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way — Napoleon Hill
When thinking about what to do for my Do One Thing (DOT) Project, which consists of changing my lifestyle to make it more sustainable I came across the idea of taking shorter showers. I didn’t think this simple change to my life could have such a large impact on the world until I began to research. I noticed that the little things I did such as turning on the shower and then waiting until it was warm to get in as well as enjoying long showers after a hard day were wasting much more water than I thought. According to H2OUSE, “Out of the 70% of water available, only 0.03% is made up of fresh water.” While our planet seems to have endless amounts of water, there isn’t much fresh water on Earth and the long showers we take are wasting this limited resource.
Even though long, hot showers are very relaxing they waste a ton of water. On a cold snowy winter day, the hot shower was somewhere I never wanted to leave. I didn't see a problem with it until I learned how much water I was wasting. An average shower uses five gallons of water per minute. Even reducing your shower time by two minutes can save you 10 gallons of water, CO2 emissions, and energy costs. It doesn't make it any easier though to get out of the searing shower after only a few minutes on those freezing days. I’ll now need plenty of blankets to keep me warm. The need for fresh water on Earth is a huge problem, especially since it is required in almost everything we do. We use water for drinking, showering, cooking, washing, and many other activities. In order to keep ourselves healthy and clean, we must conserve water. Not only humans but every species on this Earth needs water to survive. According to the Washington Post, large states such as California and Sao Paulo, Brazil are expected to experience increasing water shortages in the decades ahead.
Taking long showers not only waste water but energy as well. Pumping water from the central facility requires high amounts of energy to run the equipment. Additional energy is required to heat the water that I enjoy so much at the end of the day. This is why you should make the simple change of taking shorter showers to help conserve the little amount of fresh water on Earth.
