Water: How It Is Inconspicuously Wasted

In a developed country, there are lots of utilities that are taken care of without the bat of an eye: light, water, sewer, cable, internet. "Someone" fixes it up at your residence and next thing you know, it works. Simple as that. And we don't even give a second thought to how or why. Waste of brain space... or not?

This blog entry is devoted to our use of water. Really everyone's use of water because we all need healthy clean water. Do you know where your water comes from? Beyond the faucet? Do you know where your water goes? Beyond the drain?

This topic wouldn't be such a big deal if clean water were like sunlight. Almost every day, the sunlight breaks through the sky or the clouds and shows it's happy face for about 12 hours. That hasn't changed ever. But as most of us know, clean fresh water is not as easy to come by. So why do we waste it as if it were limitless?

I'm not at all an expert in this area, so my ranting will hopefully just create an alert or an "aha" so that you are more aware of how you use water. I don't know statistics and can't quote famous researchers, but I know that immense amounts of water are misused and wasted every day through seemingly innocent actions.

Let's take the first example of a shower. Do you leave the water on while you suds up? Why? Oh you don't want to get cold? Lame excuse buddy. If you absolutely are doing to die, why don't you put a big bucket to catch the wasted hot water and then use that water to wash dishes with. What, you're too lazy to carry the bucket to the kitchen? Wow, there just aren't enough words for you my friend.

So now that we're on the topic of the kitchen, let's talk about the dishwasher. What a ridiculous invention to make people more lazy than ever. All a dishwasher is meant for is to give its owner more time to plop down in front of the tv. "Let me throw the dinner plates in the dishwasher so I can catch my favorite tv show!" You know it's true. Well, the honest truth is also that a dishwasher uses an absurd amount of water. Washing by hand does just as good of a job, if not better. And hot water to kill the germs is totally overrated. Soap is made to do the exact same thing.

The next example is understandable for those that do not have a clean stream or river near their home: the washing machine. But if you have an uncontaminated water source directly from the ground, use it to wash clothes too! So much more water efficient and more effective. Or soak your clothes in a big bucket filled with water and detergent, wash and rinse.

We've come to the example of the epitomy of wasting water: the toilet. Yes, the toilet. Give this a thought: Why do we poop in clean drinkable water? Clean water that is so precious, that we need to save and conserve? Why would we mix a contaminated substance with clean water, only to have to separate the two and clean the water for re-use? Why spend millions (or more) of dollars to "treat" water when we could just stop getting it dirty in the first place?! Lord have mercy. I just want you to think about that and let it sink in that we poop in clean water.

Ok so what is the solution? Composting, people. Don't you know what natural fertilizer is? It's usually composed of poop from some animal, like chickens or cows. What makes our poop any different from barnyard animals in terms of fertilizer? Not much! There are safe ways to collect human poop and turn it into fertilizer: a composting latrine. It's not rocket science people. Put back into the earth what came out of it. That's it.

So that's my rant. Hope it enlightened you and made you more conscious of how much water a typical "Westerner" wastes through silly time-saving inventions.