Are Your Showers Stealing Water From Our Children? Here's How To Stop.

Some time back, Michael Phelps wrote about how people brushed their teeth wrong. You can read it here. He cited an estimated 42% of Americans leave the tap running while brushing. Discounting for babies who don’t brush, that’s likely over 115 million of the US population. According to this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, turning off the water when brushing can save around 3-4 gallons of water per person. That's an average of 1,000 gallons of water per year. Project that to the 115 million people and you get a staggering 115 billion gallons of water wasted. Turn off the tap to save that 3-4 gallons and that’s enough water saved for 100 four minute showers for the same 115 million people.

Michael wrote that as the Global Ambassador for Colgate's Save Water initiative. It’s great Colgate has taken up the cause to help save water. I don’t have Michael’s fame or Colgate's global reach. But I do have two kids. And so I’m writing this as a concerned father.

When my precious daughter was born 22 years ago, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was a ways off. Little did I think then of how she and her brother who came 6 years later may get impacted by water scarcity. Now, I worry about it every day. Even before mankind decided we will waste and pollute our freshwater, there was little of it to begin with. To understand how little we have, this article from National Geographic is illuminating.

Cited from that same article:

“Freshwater makes up a very small fraction of all water on the planet. While nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Even then, just 1 percent of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields. In essence, only 0.007 percent of the planet's water is available to fuel and feed its 6.8 billion people.”

So let me get to the topic of my headline. Running the tap while brushing is bad. At 3-4 gallons of wasted water, it’s really bad. But we have worse habits that waste even more water. Like running the tap or shower at full force.

Most of us in developed and somewhat developed countries with a good water supply system are used to running our taps and showers at full force. Why? Because it’s a habit. A habit formed growing up during a time when there wasn’t as much talk about water conservation or scarcity. It’s a little different today with many cities around the world running out of water.

Lowering the force of running water from a tap or shower is a habit that’s hard to kick for most of us. I know. I’m constantly bickering about it at home. With the same kids for whom I’m trying to save water. And the wife. You may have seen the Seinfeld episode. You know which one I’m talking about (watch a clip here). We feel unless the shower runs at full force, we didn’t have a good shower. In reality, in the shower, washing dishes at the sink, or your hands at the basin, running water at full force does little more than waste it.

The problem is our bad habit and our flawed mindset don’t serve us well. And if we don’t change that habit and or mindset, it’s going to cost us and our future generations dearly.

So this is what I suggest. Stop using our taps and showers at full force like firefighters putting out a blaze. They need to. We don't. If you are mindful to reduce the force of water from your taps and showers, the collective savings would be thousands of billions of gallons of water annually.

The average American uses 30 gallons of water per shower. I use American figures because that's what's easily available. I'm sure the figure applies for rest of the developed world. It likely applies to the developing world too, for the most part. I won’t do complicated math here. Mainly because I don’t know how. And it’d be boring. So here's some simple math.

Reduce the force of water flow from your tap or shower by a quarter. Assume an estimated 7.5 gallons of water saved per shower (from the average 30 gallons/shower). At one shower a day, that’s 2,737 gallons of water you've saved annually. Project that to half the 8 million population of New York city (we have to assume some people don’t care to shower). That’s 11 billion gallons of water saved. From only half the population. Of one major city. You see where I’m going with this. Whether washing dishes, taking a shower, or whatever, take this first step, reduce the force at which you run the water.

Want to save thousands of gallons more by yourself? Look at the way you shower. Do you keep the shower running while you lather up? Chances are you do. That’s what the majority of us do. Why? Mostly it's an ingrained habit. And now we’re conditioned to believe that’s how a good shower feels. It's what we need to properly wake us up. Or revive our spirits. Or because you need water to help the soap lather you up all over. Whatever. They’re flimsy, irrational excuses that are stealing water from ourselves and our children.

Here’s a hack to stop the waste. Get into the shower with a facecloth. Rinse your body and the facecloth at the same time. Turn off the shower. Use the soap to lather up the facecloth properly. Put the soap away and use the facecloth to lather up all over. You’re going to find you do yourself some major favours this way.

a.    You use lesser soap, which is the subject of another article.

b.    You exfoliate because of the scrubbing action of the facecloth. I won’t go into the tremendous benefits of exfoliation to make your skin glow.

c.    AND, you don’t waste water while lathering up. That is a HUGE reduction in the gallons of water per shower you would otherwise waste with your normal routine.

It’s really that simple. And you don’t have to go through withdrawal symptoms. Reduce the force slightly for a week. Reduce it a little more the next week. And then again the next. Make a mindful game of it. See how far you can reduce the flow of water and still manage to get the job done. Feel like it’s taking you more time? Believe me, it isn’t. And in the off chance it is, it’s negligible. What are you, the President, that you can’t spare a few minutes to save water for your kids? In fact, the President should set the example. 

You can choose to continue your normal routine, process, predilections, whatever. Because you believe you’re stuck in your ways. Or you can choose to change your habits and shift your mindset. To make a choice that saves water for yourself, your children and all other living creatures. At the end, we are a sum of the decisions we made during our life. The decision to conserve and protect water is a big one. So be mindful enough to make the decision. Hard code it into your brain. Save water. Save Water. Save Water.

I write on different topics, but this is the cause closest to my heart. If the next world war is going to be about water, this cause should be the closest to your heart as well.

#worldwaterday2019