Monday, January 21, 2008

Save your water!

How much water do you and your family use each day? Don't know? Here (H20conserve.org) is a handy web calculator to help you find out. Benjamin and I use about 800 gallons of water a day, each (this includes the amount needed for our car, our food, and the actual water usage). In contrast, the average American uses about 1200 gallons a day. According to the World Health Organization, humans need about 13 gallons of water a day to stay healthy - in some places in Africa, they have less than a gallon a day. We are able to be so low thanks to the low-flow toilet, shower, and dishwasher, among other things. We are in a rental, so we can't change some things, but when we have our own home, we want to put in at least a rain barrel, if not a gray water capture system, and solar panels, and some day we will have a hybrid or electric car.

I don't know how much my parents use, but my mother leaves the water running while she brushes her teeth (Yes Mom, I am publicly shaming you - it is for your own good. Love you!) OK, to be fair, they do have a couple of water barrels that collect water off the roof, which they use in the garden.

Note: Somehow I didn't get the link on when I originally posted. It should be there now.

5 comments:

Annie said...

Hoy! Where's the link to the calculator?

Hope said...

Hmm. I wonder how that happened. I could have sworn it was there before. Well, it is there now.

Annie said...

I apparently use 781 gallons per day--that seems like a lot! I suspect it's actually quite a lot less. At the cabin, I supposedly use 761 gal, but it's all from the aquifer, and if we don't use the water it just runs down the hill. So we take nice long showers!

You MUST find more of these calculators. They're really cool.

Hope said...

Yeah, it does seem like a lot, considering that you live on a boat, but I bet that a good portion of it comes from driving your car and eating. Those two activities tend to take up quite a lot.

Did you try the carbon footprint (or some such thing) that I had in a post sometime in November or December?

Annie said...

No I didn't! and you're right, a lot probably comes from food, because we use about a gallon a day on the boat.

Now I've got to go find that other calculator...