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.
11 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.
You just showed us you're a math nerd. You know how I feel about math nerds. Sigh.
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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