Save Water While
Showering
by Rouvaishyana
Put a two-gallon
bucket under
your bathtub spigot. Turn the water on hot. You don't need to wait for
the water to get hot, because the cold water that comes out will blend
with the hot water that comes out later to make nice warm water. You
only need to leave the water on 20-30 seconds, which will give you one
to one and a half gallon(s) of water. Turn the water off.
Get in the tub and pour some of the water over yourself, using about
1/4 to 1/3 of it. Shampoo and lather up. Pour water over yourself again
to rinse off. (When I do this, I'm usually left with a few quarts for
the next day. Save it.) This method may not work for someone who does
not have the arm strength or range of motion to lift a gallon of water
(about 9 lb. plus the weight of the bucket) over their head. But a
sponge bath with a cup to rinse off will work very well.
Let's do a little arithmetic. If you bathe this way, you will use about
a gallon each day, or perhaps a little more or less. That's 30-31
gallons a month, 365 gallons a year.
Now consider the so-called "low-flow" showerheads. They use 3-5 gallons
a minute. If you take a "Navy shower" turning water on to get wet, off
to lather, then on to rinse, you can probably get by with just 2-3
gallons of water. However, if you leave the water on like most people
for 3 minutes, you will use 9-15 gallons of water to shower. (Let's use
10 gallons because it makes the arithmetic really easy.) With this
method, you're using 300-310 gallons a month, or a whopping 3,650
gallons a year. If you take longer showers, you're using even more.
It's no wonder we're running short on water. We should conserve water
for more essential purposes like drinking and cooking. You can use
water that's slightly dirty to flush your toilets, water your backyard
garden, and for other uses. I know this method works because I've been
using it for several months now. I recommend it to everyone. If
everyone did it, we could cut our shower use to 10% of what it is now.
Other uses can also be cut by conserving in this way. Think about it.
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