Water Crisis? Not in my Home!
How making better use of water in your kitchen and bathroom allows you to help save the planet.
Here’s a quick test: Are the three statements below true or false?
- By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population will face a water shortage—or what experts call “water stress.”
- By 2050, the stress will become even worse.
- Less than 1 percent of the world’s freshwater is fit for human consumption.
If your answer to any or all of the above was “true,” your understanding of water and water-related issues might be flawed—thanks largely to sloppy research and careless journalism, according to an article in the fall/winter 2010 issue of the respected Brown Journal of World Affairs, titled "Water for a Thirsty Urban World."
Here’s why: Unlike oil and coal, water is a renewable resource that can be used, treated and reused. The availability of water at any given time therefore depends on how efficiently it is used and reused. Case in point: Some experts estimate that every drop of water from the Colorado River is used nearly seven times.
In honor of Earth Day on April 22, here are five tips on how you can better manage the water you use at home every day. Don’t worry—every single tip is easy enough to follow, especially if you happen to be relatively new to the water-conservation lifestyle slowly but surely sweeping the nation. Here you go:
- 1. Wash your fruits and vegetables in a pan of water or in a stoppered sink instead of under running water from your kitchen tap—and do this immediately after you return from grocery shopping. That way, you won’t have to pull out unwashed items from your refrigerator and rinse them separately under the tap just before consuming them. And instead of throwing away the water you use to wash the fruits and veges, reuse it to water houseplants.
- 2. If you like to wash your car with your own hands instead of taking it to a car wash where you never really know if the water is recycled and how many of the unpaid workers slave only for tips, here’s a thought: Wash your car on your lawn. That way, you don’t have to worry about watering your lawn.
- 3. Reduce the number of cups or glasses you wash on a daily basis by designating a single cup/glass for your drinking water each day.
- 4. Got young kids? Instead of bathing them separately, get them into the same tub and save on both water and your time. Bonus tip: You can use the bathwater to manually flush the toilet for the entire day if you don’t mind the extra work. (Bonus info: In Japan during winter, family members use the same tub of hot water to soak in after taking quick showers.)
- 5. Speaking of toilets, here’s a tip you probably never though of: Discard as much tissue as possible in the trash instead of flushing it.
Joan Stevens
6:34 am on Monday, April 4, 2011
Totally misleading start to the article! I believe we ARE using water up faster than it is being "recycled". And as for drinking quality water it takes an amazing amount of technology andover invested to get water to that standard. Wash my car on my lawn??? Are you serious? If we are serious about preserving water the lawn has got to go! And washing your car with drinking quality water is a huge waste too. And though it's comforting that you are so unconcerned about the future if water access and availability on the planet it's troubling that so many who are experts on the issue are seriously concerned. Try reading (or watching) Blue Gold. That will explain a lot. Also- you know that Colorado river you mentioned? You know- the one that no longer flows to the ocean because it is so heavily diverted? Not the best example to use to illustrate how good we are at using and reusing water. It's more of a plumbing/engineering spectacle now and less of a functional river. Sad.
Ajay Singh
7:37 am on Monday, April 4, 2011
Thanks, Joan. I defer to Asit Biswas, president of the Third World Center for Water Management in Mexico and the author of the Brown Journal article I referenced, in which he makes four key points: First, that there is "no reliable methodology to calculate the amount of water available at any given time for human use due to conceptual problems as well as data inadequacy and unreliability." Second, that "there is absolutely no scientific rationale as to the way water stress is estimated at present [and] there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes water stress and how it can be reliably estimated." Third, "no one has any definitive idea what quantities of groundwater are available for use in countries like Brazil, Canada, China or India, let alone on a global basis. Accordingly, all the current estimates on global water availability, even disregarding water reuse, are at best very poor guesses. And fourth, "all the water scarcity studies implicitly assume that global developments will remain somewhat similar for the next several decades, with only incremental improvements. In stark contrast to this assumption, it can be safely predicted that there will most certainly be major and very significant changes during the coming decades because of improvements in governance practices and rapid advances in technology."
Alison Gee
1:53 pm on Monday, April 4, 2011
Neat. I could see working most of these water-saving tips into my daily family life, no problem. I especially like the bath water as flushing water idea! Thanks.
Chip
1:02 pm on Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Top 5 Ways to Save Water The Patch Way:
1. When it rains, grab a bar of soap and "shower" outdoors. Bonus tip: Use your dirty laundry as wash towels and get some laundry done at the same time!
2. Flush the toilet? Discard used tissue in the trash? Pshaw. Don't even use the toilet, just crap in your backyard and fertilize your tomatoes the way your ancestors did. Bonus tip: Piss on weeds and let the ammonia kill them.
3. Save your dishes for the morning. After you have washed them, use the soapy water to wash your face. Use any floating food bits as exfoliant. Bonus tip: Brush your teeth with your first cup of coffee instead of water - you'll be minty fresh AND awake!
4. Invite the neighbors over for a Swingers Sex party and end the evening with a group shower. Make it a weekly event! Bonus tip: While recuperating in between partners, hold mini-Neighborhood Watch meetings until the Cialis re-kicks in again.
5. Tap into your inner Jackson Pollock and paint your car in an abstract style. Then just STOP washing it as nobody will be able to tell if it is dirty or not. Bonus tip: Park it outside Cactus Gallery on NELA Second Saturday ArtWalk nights and price it to sell at double the Blue Book value.