Could you reduce your showers by half?
Over on Reduce Footprints this week, our ‘Change the world Wednesday‘ gets us thinking about our water consumption again.
We’ve had sunny spells for weeks now, with hardly an April shower in sight. With new seeds planted, I’m already thinking about conserving water.
The very first Change the world Wednesday challenge was to cut down showers to no more than 10 minutes. That challenge was quickly upped to no more than 2 minutes, which many people accomplished!
This week, we’re asked to cut down the number of showers we take by half.
I’m not quite sure how I can take part in this one. I admit I don’t shower that often, our shower leaves a lot to be desired, so I use baths instead.
However, I only have one or two baths per week. I might have one long luxuriating soak and another ‘business bath’ where I have a couple of inches water in the bottom of the bath just to get myself clean.
Am I prepared to cut this down further? Well we already share the bath water as it is and I”m not sure two baths in a week is over the top.
If I’m having a bath of the long luxuriating soak type, Mr Green and I might share it and then Little Miss green will get in afterwards, once the water has cooled down.
I guess I could drop the ‘business bath’ but to be honest, by the time I’ve had a strip wash I’ll probably have used the same amount of water.
One thing I could do is look at what we do with the water after we have bathed. At the moment it goes down the drain, but what I will do is see if there is any way we can capture this water for reuse. This could be problematic because the bathroom is downstairs, which means there is no gravity to discharge the water into a rain barrell.
Something else we’ve considered is putting a tank on the bathroom roof to gather rain water for flushing the toilet; this is something else I could look in to more and price up. At the moment we need to repair the roof, but we could put extra strengtheners to this budget.
What about you? Could you cut down the number of showers you take by half?
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Personally there are limits and as I spend quite a bit of time out in the countryside birdwatching, climbing up hills, squeezing under bushes and so on I think I would struggle (or more likely my girlfriend would complain!) if I took to showering less. But by turning on the water, then off again, applying soap while wet, then turning the water back on again to “rinse” you can save quite a bit of water each week.
@Richard @ Eco Living Advice: Hi Richard; great to see you - nice site you have there
I’ve heard about these types of showers; a true ‘business shower’ if ever there was one!
I’d say that you’ve already done quite well with this challenge. But what I really like is that it doesn’t end there … you epitomize green living in that you go the step further and try to find ways to make bathing even more efficient.
I’m anxious to see what you end up doing to improve the process.
Have a great day!
@Small Footprints: Thanks sweetie! Unfortunately, Mr G has mended our bathroom roof and declared it not strong enough for a water tank; so that idea is on hold. We do have a well and could put a pump into it, but I was looking for a solution sans electricity… Back to the drawing board!