Sunday, May 22, 2011

I am Officially a Waterhog!

Hello Blog World!

After two weeks of careful tracking, I finally have my numbers for my daily water use. I:
  • Flush the toilet 5 times a day and have a 13 litre toilet
  • Wash my hands and/or face 7 times a day and run the water 15 seconds each time
  • Shower 3 times a week for 9 minutes
  • Wash the dishes once a day and run the water for 2 minutes each time
  • Use 3 litres of water a week for cooking
  • Brush my teeth twice a day and run the tap 30 seconds each time
  • Run the water about 3 minutes a week for shaving
  • Clean 2 loads of laundry per week with a standard washing machine
With all these numbers, I use about 275 liters of water a day. In the city of Guelph the water usage is approximately 230 litres a day (Source: City of Guelph). Canadians on average consume 329 litres of water a day (Source: Environment Canada)


So, although my water usage isn't nearly as high as the Canadian average, it is much higher than the Guelph average. To put my water use in a better perspective, in the UK the average water consumption is 149 litres per day, in China 86 litres per day and in Mozambique only 4 litres a day (Source: Data 360)

I will admit I am quite ashamed of my water consumption. It's hard to see how much water one really uses in a day. But what to do? Well, thankfully there are many ways that you can conserve water. As of today I am officially in water warrior mode, I will post again with updates soon!

Ta-ta for now!

Your Water Warrior,

Erin

Monday, May 9, 2011

Week 1: The Beginning!

Hello Readers!

I'm very excited to say that this is going to be my first official week of counting my water use. For the first week my goal is to use water the same way I always would, without making any extra effort to conserve. Now, I do some simple things to save water like turning the tap off when I brush my teeth, but I will admit I'm not extremely conscientious of my water use. First of all, I have to say that I am a little disappointed with myself. I started the week by cleaning my new apartment and my use of water was not conservative by any definition of the word. I left the water running while I rinsed out my sponges, and filled the bucket all the way up when I washed the floor.

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why didn't Erin just not do those things if she knew they're wasteful?" I would like to again stress that although I think water is extremely important and now that I'm thinking about it I know I shouldn't do these things, but the goal for this week is to set a baseline to compare my weekly water-use to after I start conserving water. That way, I will have a measurable amount of water saved at the end of the summer. That's all for now!

That's all for now folks! Check out my water resources page for some links to cool water websites!

Cheers for the Water Warrior,

Erin