How to Reduce Your Water Consumption
Good magazine has a water-use "Transparency," a chart that graphically illustrates how much average water is used for various activities and how to reduce it.
As we become more and more aware that we may be using water at an unsustainable pace, the idea of water footprints—the amount of water an individual uses—is becoming more common. Water footprints can be hard to calculate, depending on how far up the chain of production you go, since everything you eat and buy used some water to produce.
According to the chart, beef represents one of the most intensive uses of water. [via Doobybrain.com]
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9 Comments:
I like the "bath" vs. "no bath" comparison. Not surprisingly, "no bath" uses zero gallons of water.
Also, they don't appear to take into account that those stupid "low-pressure" toilets typically require two flushes to do the job. I wonder if it still consumes less water with that added into the equation.
cickert at 10:13PM on 03/18/09
Nuclear power uses up tap water? Huh?
Political.
peekpoke at 11:23PM on 03/18/09
Actually, the equation is not that difficult.
For the low-flow toilet that uses 1.3 gallons per flush, we can calculate
what two flushes use like this:
1.3 * 2 = 2.6
2.6 is far less than 6 for a standard toilet.
I tried filling my mid-sized passenger car with water, and it held only 750 gallons, so I doubt the veracity of this piece (perhaps if I let the passengers out?).
Finally, the article fails to point out that water footprints are a lot easier to clean up than carbon footprints.
Don Luis at 7:17AM on 03/19/09
hamburgers make a surprise visit in another issue of 'transparency' from good.
http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/web/trans0209gettingaroundrev.html
avisualperson at 11:01AM on 03/19/09
this exhibition/poster is also quite good, showing water footprints not only of countries (in proportion to actual size as well as water use) and also the production of various agricultural products and goods, e.g. cheese, toast and the aforementioned beef.
http://www.traumkrieger.de/virtualwater/
avisualperson at 11:04AM on 03/19/09
So following this logic, I guess we should restrict our diet to beer and baked potatoes.
bearsonawire at 11:52AM on 03/19/09
my favorite part is the assumption that people go to the bathroom twice a day. i guess that might be the case if my daily liquid consumption was limited to a cup of tea, a glass of water, and a beer as in their example. i'm not sure that's healthy, though....
sloppy at 12:49PM on 03/19/09
I'd certainly like to see some backing for that data.
GoodEaterKenji at 1:13PM on 03/19/09
how to save water? shower with a friend and drink more beer and wine.
;-)
huneybumper at 7:45AM on 03/20/09