Twenty-five seconds showers

Posted on by under Economic issues, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, History, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I don’t know about you guys, but I know my family wastes a LOT of water. We let it run long enough to get the chemical taste out if we’re going to drink it, take luxuriously long, hot showers, run the dishwasher when it’s only half full, and more. Our friend Keith reminds us of the impending water crises around the globe and how we can do our own small part to help avoid disaster. Thank you, Keith, for this important reminder!

To our friends in both Florida and Canada … keep safe as best you can with the hurricanes that are coming your way. You are in our hearts today.

musingsofanoldfart

Regardless of whether elected officials want to talk about this, we have a global water crisis that has been building for some time. Here in the states, it manifests itself in three ways: more severe droughts in drier areas, evaporating and depleting water sources, and too many lead pipes still being used to provide water to cities.

And, this is before climate change has made the situation worse. I have cited before a statistic from a Duke Energy report that said climate change will cause evaporation from their water sources by 11% more than before. The folks out in the western part of the US are seeing major river sources at risk with so many competing users and states. The same is true in other parts of the world such as Cape Town, South Africa and in Chile, eg.

So, there are many things we must do combat these problems…

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20 thoughts on “Twenty-five seconds showers”

    • That is quite true. We have taken of Earth’s resources, destroyed some of them, and failed to replenish or care for those resources. Earth will survive and a few millennia after the demise of the human species, will have replenished itself. Humans, however, will bring about their own extinction. I can just hear the last few gasping out in their final breaths, “B-b-but we thought climate change was a hoax!” Sigh. xx

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  2. The global water reckoning is truly something terrifying to think about. Something so basic and essential to life will soon become heavily monetized and politicized. Very scary to think about.

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    • It certainly is! Most of us have never had to ration water, to do without showers, cooking water, drinking water, etc., but that day may well be coming in the not-so-distant future. It is scary to think about … just as are so many of the effects of climate change. The world is changing … and humans keep wasting time denying it. Sigh.

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  3. Buy a Brita pitcher. No more chemical taste. I’ve had one for over ten years. I just replace the filter every three months. Easy peasy.

    As for the shower, most hardware stores sell governors for the shower head which will slow the flow of water so you are not using as much water. Most of the apartments I have lived in have had them installed (I was good at removing them). But other than that, it’s easy to take shorter showers. Just don’t stand there enjoying the feel of the hot water running down your back. Get in, get out. Twenty-five seconds is a bit fast but I know people who take close to thirty minutes or more! That’s a LOT of water going down the drain.

    Another thing … don’t leave the water running when you’re brushing your teeth. The drain in the sink where I brush my teeth is exceedingly slow so that’s an easy one to remember.

    Even though I live in Western NY & with the presence of two Great Lakes & the Finger Lakes to the east of us, nobody but nobody thinks about the water crisis at all (except to be grateful that it’s not an issue here), I do have a water bill so I try to use as little water as possible.

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    • I’ve actually been considering, on advice of a friend, buying a distiller. I don’t have space for it in my kitchen, but I guess I can build a shelf somewhere over the sink. Sigh. We do have water-saving shower heads and toilets, though. I promised myself I would stop leaving the water running while brushing my teeth and washing my face in the morning, but do you think I remembered that promise this morning when I was still half asleep? Heck no! I will try, though. You’re right … most people don’t give a second thought to water … it’s just always been there in abundance. But the time has come that we better start thinking about it … in some countries it’s already scarce.

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      • Jill, I don’t want to take anything away from your friends advice, but for us Britta Filters never cut it. I bought the whole caboodle several times in different countries with differently hard waters. It DOES change the structure of the water and we always disliked it. Espresso with ‘britta-ed’ water were terrible. But it seems to work for plenty of ppl, so maybe that’s the route for you too.
        Since living in France with severe water problems each summer, I very early learned to value saving water on a serious level. No ‘unlimited’ showers: Just turn it on, wet yourself, stop it – soap and/or whatever you need to do, turn it on to wash away the soap and with some 10l of warm water you are spick-and-span.
        Since Covid, I try to wet my hands, stop the lever, soap them and lift the lever again for washing off.
        Teeth cleaning, same!
        As we live in a rental, we can’t do anything to the toilet’s amount of water, in earlier places we could put a brick in the flushing – haven’t done that yet, as there is absolutely not a single brick to be found anywhere nearby….
        We MUST learn to adjust – and we will.
        Good day and good week to you, my friend.

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        • Thanks for your take on the Brita filter! I wasn’t considering one of them, but an actual water distiller that purifies the water, however they are expensive and take up a lot of space that I don’t have. I could go back to buying bottled water, but then there’s the plastics. Sigh. No simple solution. You deserve a thumbs up for your conservation efforts. I’m trying to do better … I have a ways to go yet, though. Water is one of those things, like electricity, that we take for granted … until it’s gone.

          Take care, my friend, and have a great week ahead!

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          • I buy bottled water, in addition to having a Brita Pitcher. Two things: here in NY, bottled water has a 5-cent deposit, so I keep my water bottles to take back for recycling & for that 5-cent return … by the time I have enough bottles to return, I usually get around $15. I keep all my bottles & cans & I usually pick up bottles & cans I find on my walks around the neighborhood. (hey a nickel is a nickel, no matter what form it’s in).

            As for the Brita pitcher, what do you mean by the space it takes up? It takes up less space than a gallon of milk. Is your fridge so packed with food? Or maybe you have an especially small fridge? Just wondering.

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            • No no … I didn’t mean I didn’t have room for the Brita pitcher, though my refrigerator is quite small! I meant the distiller I was considering, which is about 2-3 times the size of my Bunn coffee maker.

              I do love that you can recycle your plastic bottles … EVERY state should do that!!! Can you also recycle other single-use plastics like the bags from the grocery (I do use reusable canvas bags, but when I use the pickup service, that’s not an option) and the plastic cups from carry out places?

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              • We no longer have plastic bags in our grocery stores here. You can buy a paper bag or a reusuable bag. But I have a bunch of those already, I carry at least 4 of them in my backpack. I carry a few plastic bags too .. I always put my milk in plastic, in case it leaks, I put my eggs into plastic, in case they break, I put my meat into plastic, in case they leak (especially chicken). I don’t want a mess in my backpack or my bags.

                I recycle everything I can. I have more in my recycling bin than I have in my garbage can.

                I was raised never to waste anything at all. Not food, not clothing, not anything at all. I remember being told never to waste time! My father told me, you can never get time back. He was so right.

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                • I admire your efforts! I must try to do better. We waste entirely too much food in this household and I’m trying to do better there. I do use reusable grocery bags when possible, and when I have no choice, I reuse the plastic ones for kitty litter bags or small wastebasket liners. But there is more we could do. You’re doing good, my friend!

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  4. Having had no water at all for almost 3 months in 2004 after a severe flood destroyed our town’s water and sewage infrastructure and being limited to 6 litres (1.3 gal) per person per day delivered in bottles, I really appreciate my showers these days. It’s one luxury I’d be reluctant to give up. But we have made water efficiencies in other ways. One was installing water efficient toilets using only 0.9 litres (0.2 gal) per flush. When we replaced our fridge, we purchased one with a plumbed, filtered water outlet so that it’s not necessary to run the tap to reduce that taste (which never goes away entirely anyway).

    We have a dual drawer dishwasher which is more water efficient than a normal dishwasher as each drawer is independent of the other, and with the combined capacity of both drawers being approximately the same as a standard front loading dishwasher, half loads are not wasteful Likewise we have a front loading washing machine as they use less water than top loading machines.

    I’ve looked at greywater (recycled wastewater) options but as yet they are not a viable option for domestic use. Many larger commercial premises and shopping precincts now use greywater, and I now make a point of patronising those places in preference to others.

    A more practical option for us would be to capture rainwater, as we’re in a part of the country that will experience more rain with climate change, and this is something we’ll be keeping in mind.

    We are trying to be green in other ways as well. Around 16 months ago we installed solar panels to reduce the amount of electricity we consume from the grid. Our reasoning (apart from the eventual cost benefits) was that by reducing our demand from the grid, we are doing our part to lessen the load on current generation facilities and thereby reducing the need for additional facilities to be built. Although around 80% of NZ’s electricity comes from renewable sources, even those come at a cost. Hydro dams damage the local environment, and this country is running out of suitable waters to dam anyway. Wind generates low frequency sound that has a serious effect on some people and quite likely also on native fauna, and geothermal sources are in limited supply using current technology. During last summer, our solar panels produced considerably more electricity than we consumed

    None of us can do much on our own to mitigate climate change, but if we each always mindful of how our choices might affect the climate and our use of dwindling resources, then there remains hope for the future.

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    • You’re right … it goes far beyond shower time, but we can find so many ways to cut back on wasting water, electricity, food, and other things that we take for granted today but that might become scarce before long.

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  7. Pingback: Twenty-five seconds showers — Filosofa’s Word | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

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