As I said in my last post, we'll be examining my water and power consumption habits, and efforts to reduce that consumption, room by room this month, starting with:
THE BATHROOM
First, a few fun facts* about water consumption in the bathroom:
- A running faucet uses 3 gallons of water per minute.
- Flushing the toilet accounts for 26.7% of daily residential indoor water use.**
- The average bath uses about 50 gallons of water.
- The average shower uses 3 gallons per minute, or ~25-45 gallons for a shower. (That means the average shower runs between 8 and 15 minutes.)
*Source: King County Water Saving Tips
To find out what my water consumption in the bathroom was before this month, I did some data collection last month. I put two index cards on the wall of my bathroom and hung a sharpened pencil from the towel bar. On one card, I did a running tally of how often I flushed the toilet. I did not require visitors to my home to tally their flushes, nor did I keep a tally of how many times I flushed when at work, at the gym, at friends' homes, or during my five-day vacation. This tally specifically looked at my flushing habits in the privacy of my own home. Let's dive in, shall we
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THE TOILET
The end-of-month tally results show that I flushed my home toilet 90 times in June. Now, my toilet tank is actually not huge; it is 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush). This means I flushed 144 gallons (544.32 liters) water last month. According to the AWWARF study results linked above, the average daily usage for one person with a 1.6 gpf toilet is 10 gallons (39 liters). If I divide my flushed water total by 25 (I've subtracted my vacation days), we see that my June daily average for water flushed at home is 5.76 gallons (21.77 liters).
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| Statistics in action! |
So the good news is I'm starting with low numbers, which means one of three things:
- I'm a camel, who can hold her water forever.
- I'm likely dehydrated all the time.
- I peed a lot away from home last month.
Obviously this is not sophisticated science. But I still would like to reduce the amount of water I flush this month. I have two strategies. First, I've put a weighted plastic liter bottle in my toilet tank. The tank water comes up a little over halfway on it, so I'd guess I'm flushing with about 1/2 liter or 13% less water.
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| High tech tank! |
And then there's my second strategy, expressed in this lovely rhyming couplet: "If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yellow, let it mellow."
Yup, I'm going there. My goal this month is to see how many times I can piss in my toilet before flushing without clogging up the toilet with TP and…other matter. Or before my bathroom stinks of pee. Or before flies descend on my porcelain throne.
Is it gross? Maybe. That's a subjective question. I've peed in some pretty undesirable places: the little girls' room at a preschool, the woods in the winter, many hole-in-the-ground commodes in the countryside of SE Asia, in the Costa Rican jungle at night without a flashlight, and one particularly terrifying Honey Pot in Boardman, Oregon. But pissing into my fairly clean toilet in my fairly clean bathroom in my fairly clean home, with just one person's pee—my pee!--already in it? Hell, that sounds almost pristine to me. So I'm rolling with it and I'm keeping a tally to compare this month and last month.
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| I've yet to pee in an Ethiopian "arbor loo." Photo by Catholic Relief Services staff. |
(But don't you worry: I'll flush if you come to visit, and I'll flush at your house and in public places. And I'll ALWAYS flush after #2.)
My toilet stats as of today (7/9):
-Flush Tally Count: 22
-Estimated water flush: ~32.27 gallons (122 liters)
Back to the second index card!
THE SHOWER
On my second index card, I kept a tally of how many showers and baths I took and I also noted the duration of all my showers. I timed them on a carabineer timer that I hung from my towel bar. I tend to bathe or shower after I go running, which I aspire to do every other day. So I wasn't too shocked by my results: 14 showers and 1 bath at home in June. My times were a little less predictable. My fastest shower was roughly about 4-1/2 minutes; my longest was 12 minutes--shaving, I'm sure. I spent a total of 91 minutes and 55 seconds showering in June, so my average shower length is *roughly* around 6-1/2 minutes. If the average shower uses 3 gallons of water per minute, I used ~274.65 gallons of water in the shower last month. Plus, apparently 50 gallons for that one bath (hard to believe my tub holds that much). That makes a bathing water usage total of 324.65 gallons for the month of June.
Now I don't think that not showering as much is a sustainable method for reducing my water consumption—I already don't shower every day. Also, I also am not willing to stop shaving my legs once a week. How do I reduce my waste then? Here's my quick strategy list:
- I will not take baths. (It IS summer after all.)
- I will turn off the water while I'm lathering and shaving. (Yes, I'll get cold, but it IS summer after all.)
- I will not take super-hot showers to reduce the amount of energy I squander heating up that water. (It IS summer after all.)
Again, I'm timing my showers as before and keeping a tally.
My shower stats as of today (7/9):
-Shower Tally Count: 2 (Don't worry, I've taken more showers than that this month: I stayed at a friend's dog sitting over the fourth.)
-Average shower duration (i.e. the time the water is actually running): 3m25s.
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| My trusty timer in action! |
SINK, LIGHTS, & FAN
These are my other water and electricity considerations in the bathroom. Reduced consumption strategies:
- Wet a washcloth for face and general washing up. Use cold water.
- Wet hands, then turn off water to lather for hand washing. Rinse briskly. Use cold water.
- Wet toothbrush and then turn off water for teeth brushing. Rinse toothbrush and teeth with water from a glass, rather than running faucet. Try to use one glass for two brushings.
- Lights off during the day unless it is a really dark, cloudy day. Lights on only when I'm in the bathroom otherwise.
- Fan—run only while in the shower, or just open the window instead. Brief showers with not-so-hot water and long water-off pauses produce less steam.
That's it. That's my bathroom water plan. Isn't it something?!
Before I run, here's my READING IN THE HAMMOCK status report: I've put in about 4 hours reading in my hammock so far in July. It has been fabulous!
Next time, we'll tackle the kitchen....
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