Your Lovely Water Footprint
Posted by Kay A. SternerFirst there was calorie counting, then there was carbon counting, and now there’s water counting. The leading soothsayers of the day—scientists, politicians, dystopian science fiction writers—all agree that access to fresh drinking water is going to be the source of future war.
What can peace loving boys and girls do to offset the looming threat of war? Count your water footprint, of course (not literally silly). Here are a few easy ways to reduce your daily water intake.
Use bar soaps and powdered detergents. Proctor&LeverBath&Body inc. all use a tremendous amount of water in their liquid soap products. BONUS! These water friendly products require less packaging.
Stick a glass jar of rocks in your toilet tank. No kidding. Think about it—the more mass in your tank, the less water you need to fill it up.
If it’s yellow let it mellow. Enough said.
Turn the water off when you brush your teeth, duh.
Turn the shower off when you shave your legs.
Plant sun loving perennials in your garden.
Use a dishwasher if you can. On average dishwashers use less water to clean dishes than a person.
Avoid bottled water and drink it straight from the tap. Filter it if you are paranoid. Bottled water is a huge water and energy guzzler, and studies have shown that the plastic used in most water bottles is an endocrine disrupter. Yuck.
Good luck troops. We’re all counting on each other.
(Statistics provided upon request.)
August 14th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
If it’s yellow let it mellow. Enough said.
Smell? My house does not have central a/c - come summer the smell of ‘yellow’ in the bowl can get pretty ripe.