After a couple of nice passive aggressive comments from my neighbors about how I am letting my lawn cook without any thought to the rest of the neighborhood I began to think a little bit about my water consumption.
After all isn't it kind of silly that I am watering my grass when half of the world lacks potable water?
So I drained my toilet and measured the water in the tank.....2 gallons every flush
I plugged the shower when I went and then filled up gallon buckets with all of the water that collected in the tub...10 gallons. (Yeah I know there is evaporation and dirt and soap that made it into the bucket but for the sake of this exercise I was just going for rough counts)
Pot of coffee, 3 mixers, 4 glasses of water(Probably typical of what I drink in an average day measured out, and although there is sugar and other stuff in there I assume most of it is really water) .....2.5 gallons
We have auto flush urinals at work that the manufactures website says use a half gallon a flush.
So here is my water usage.
Home toilet 4 flushes per day 8 gallons
Shower 10 gallons
Drinks 2.5 gallons
Work toilet 4 uses for 2 gallons
(Laundry 2 gallons 3x per week
Dishes 2 gallons per night we will say three gallons for home maintenance per day)
25.5 gallons a day * 365 or 9307.5 gallons a year *70 years = 651,525 in a life time.
I know in Minneapolis we treat and re-use water very efficiently so that very little of the water I use is wasted.
Brian in Minneapolis's Water Usage @ the current price of gas (3.68) = $34,251.00 per year
Brian in Minneapolis's Water Usage in liters = 35,182 liters per year
I don't know why I did this or why I tell I just know I feel better now knowing this.
10 comments:
Brian -- FOUR flushes a day? Except days you are drinking...
wow!i must say i am impressed with your measurements and calculations!
Thats awesome.
Not only is watering a waste of water, but if you do so, it grows faster, which means it needs to be mowed more, which uses more gas. Grass is resilient. It can handle it.
I agree with Thomas. Watering my lawn is not high on my list of priorities when it comes to keeping our habitat habitable.
water usage x the price of gas? converting gallons into liters? Crunching numbers for the hell of it? You've discovered my secret shame. I think I love you. ;-)
You could take the water you collect in the shower and water your lawn with it!
i have never watered my yard. not once. why bother? everyone's grass ends up looking as brown and dry as mine by the end of the summer anyway.
I think I pee close to 25 gallons a day. Maybe that should be recycled.
hmmm, new visitor, im 25 and i live in australia, the sunbaked land. we have water restrictions too. heavy ones as our main river suppying our drinking water is drying up to a creek. you can probably use your shower water to water the lawn. and not flushing everytime u pee may help save water. here in Oz we have a saying "if its brown - flush it down, if its yellow - let it mellow". don't mean to gross you out but water is really tight here. we have water police. evil. just wanted to say hi.
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