My water log

Water is definatley something that I take for granted.   I know that I use alot of water but I don’t really have much of an idea how much water I actually use.  I decided that I was going to keep track of how much water I tend to use in a typical day and then calculate that to weeks.  This is what I found.  I use ATON of water!!!!

 For starters, I take two showers a day.  Some may say that thats wasteful but I take a shower in the morning to wake up and a shower after working out or practice each night.  To me that just makes sense, because I like to be clean.  But I found out that that uses a ton of water.   According to http://www.co.kane.il.us/kcstorm/waterfacts.asp, the average 10 minute shower uses 40 gallons of water.   Mutiply that times 2 and that means that I use 80 gallons of water on showering every day.  80 gallons (7 days a week) = 560 gallons  of water just on showering every week.   I aslo probably do one load of laundry every week and according to http://www.almanac.com/edpicks.0698/waterused.html it requires 30-60 gallons of water to do a large load of laundry.  That is kind of a wide range so I am going to go with the middle of the range and say that I use 45 gallons of water a week on laundry.   I also use alot of water when I brush my teeth every day.  I have a bad habit of leaving the water running while I brush my teeth which I am hopefully going to change as a result of my findings.  According  to http://www.co.kane.il.us/kcstorm/waterfacts.asp, I use 5 gallons of water every time that I leave the water running while I brush my teeth.  I brush my teeth four times a day so that means 5 (4) = 20 gallons (7 days  a week) = 140 gallons of water a week for brushing my teeth.   Also from the same site, every toilet flush uses 5 gallons of water.  5(4)= 20 gallons (7 days a week) = 140 gallons of water a week from flusing the  toilet. 

                    

Okay so so far I use 560 gallons +45 gallons+ 140 gallons + 140 gallons = 885 gallons of water so far.  These are just some of the obvious sources of where I use water.  But water is also need in the production of many things.  For example, it is used in soda can production, newspaper production and gasoline production.  According to http://www.co.kane.il.us/kcstorm/waterfacts.asp:

                                             

Indirect uses of water also add up quickly:
Each gallon of gasoline  requires 1,000 gallons of water to produce.
Each can of soda requires 29,000 gallons of water to produce.
Each newspaper requires 66,000 gallons of water to produce.

I was very surprised and somewhat skeptical about these numbers when I read them, but I think that this is a valid site because it is sponsored by the Kane County Storm Management.  I drive  a Ford Explorer and it holds about 15 or so gallons of gas in its tank.   According to the above information, that means that filling up my tank uses 15(1000)= 15000 gallons of water.  I am personally not a big soda person but I probably drink at least one can of coke a week so that means that that 29000 gallons of water were used to produce that can.  I do not usually read the newspaper, I tend to get my news from the internet, so I did not think that newspaper usage really effected my water blog.  Okay so I definalely added more gallons of water to my weekly total now it is up to :

885 gallons+ 15000 gallons+ 29000 gallons= 44885 gallons of water per week. 

These are only just a few sources of where my water consumption comes from.  I am sure that I use much more water, but I am not aware of it.  Well great, now I know that I use a ton of water and surely way to much of it, but what can I do about it.  Luckily there are some simple steps that I can do to reduce my water consumption. For starters,  I can reduce the amount of time that I spend in the shower every day and  I can turn off the water while I brush my teeth.  According to http://www.co.kane.il.us/kcstorm/waterfacts.asp, these are some other ways to reduce water consumption:

By installing more efficient water fixtures and regularly checking for leaks, households can reduce daily per capita water use by about 30% to about 51.9 gallons per day.

Little leaks add up in a hurry. A faucet drip or invisible toilet leak that totals only two tablespoons a minute comes to 15 gallons a day. That’s 105 gallons a week and 5,460 wasted gallons of water a year.

Check every faucet in the house. A single dripping faucet can waste far more water in a single day than one person needs for drinking in an entire week. Don’t wait to fix a drip. Do it now!

Here’s a two-for-one idea if you have a fish tank in the house. When you clean the tank, use the dirty water on your houseplants. It’s rich, in nitrogen and phosphorous, which gives you a nice fertilizer while you use the same water twice.

Select the appropriate water level for the size of your load of laundry. Most washers now offer preset water levels for small, medium, and large loads. Use full loads whenever possible.

Have you ever heard of showering “The Navy Way”? Because fresh water is relatively scarce on ships, sailors were taught to just get wet, and then turn off the shower while soaping and scrubbing, and turn it on again briefly to rinse off. It’s a great water conservation technique.

These are just a few of many tips that the website provides. If you are intersted in learning more I highly suggest that you visit it. This log has certainly made me more aware of the amount of water I use although I am sure there are many more sources of water consumption that I did not mention, and I will consciously make an effort to reduce the amount of water that I consume. 

image credit:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dripping_faucet_2.jpg