Drops in the water bucket

Hot and cold running water is a relatively new luxury, and of course it's still available only to those living in "civilized" places. In the United States most of us can simply turn a tap and have cold fresh water instantly, and hot fresh water in a matter of moments. No walking out to the river or pond or well with jugs to carry back on head or shoulders, and no frequent worries about supplies or purity.

In most locales, water is cheap -- really cheap. Where we are in Connecticut, the basic rate is $43 for 500 cubic feet of water. That's 3740 gallons of water at just over a penny per gallon. Amazing. What if it were, say, 25 cents a gallon? Filling a kettle would cost about 15 cents. A good shower would cost about $1.50. You'd think twice about watering your lawn if it didn't actually need it.

But water is very, very cheap. So what do we do? We let it run down the drain. We take long, luxurious showers. We flush toilets with the merest hint of pee in the bowl. We let leaky faucets and valves drip for days, weeks, months. We water lawns that need no watering. We wash cars that need no washing.

The water issue, if considered separately from other conservation and environmental issues, is just as important, and absolutely critical in certain parts of the world.

But aside from global concerns, there are the simple issues of cost and responsibility. In our house, we now keep a quart container by the bathrooom sink. When we open the hot-water tap in the morning, it runs cold for a while. So we catch that cold water in the container and use it to brush teeth and rinse the sink, or we empty it into the toilet tank when we flush to take the place of a quart that would have to be piped in.

We'll probably save 300 gallons a year that way in that one bathroom. That's about 40 cubic feet -- only a few bucks' worth of water where we live, but quite a lot of water in reality -- enough to sustain our immediate family of three people and a big dog for a couple of weeks. Multiply those savings by a few thousand families, and it can make a difference in the local water supply overall.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Comments

[SHK]

How come we don't have those great dual-flush toilets like in Europe? Make your choice as duty calls. So much saved so simply.