My Drop in the Bucket ..or Water and Me
I've been looking at how to reduce my consumption and waste of water. Personally I believe the next World War will be fought over water. I don't agree with a lot of the things Starhawk does but I agree that Water is what is going to matter to us in the long run. If you've never read The Fifth Sacred Thing, you might borrow it or check out used bookstores for it. It's fictional, but in many ways prophetic I believe. Not so much in a literal sense, but the basic premise is there is a coming war over the lack of CONSUMABLE water.
There is not one drop more or less water than there ever has been on the planet. What changes is the amount of CONSUMABLE water that we humans can use to survive. Once the oceans are dead, I'm sure the oil will turn up in the glaciers as well and infiltrate our fresh water supply, if it hasn't already from the million other ways we haven't thought about yet.
So I limit my water usage. I do NOT flush every single time I use the toilet. I keep the lid closed and I may flush the toilet twice per day. I use the restroom far more than that. The water wasted during the shower warm up for most folks is enough to flush your toilet with if you keep a bucket handy. That water is gone forever once it goes down the drain. My showers are getting progressively shorter and cooler as I attempt to wean myself off of hot water and reduce my water usage. I turn off the water while I brush my teeth. I run a pan full of warm water when I begin cooking dinner as well as designate a place for compost-able stuff. I clean my utensils in the water when needed, and use the water for any wiping up I need to do while cooking, cleaning as I go. I try and use one glass, and one plate or bowl per day and I keep a personal water container. I'm still working on mastering using only one fork, knife and spoon, but I will get there. When I am done with the water, depending on what it's got in it, I use it either to water my indoor plants or I add it to the compost bucket. The compose pile has to stay warm and moist. Using water for this isn't needed if I just reuse the water I would normally let go down the drain.
Outside, I have a rain barrel..actually I have two, with plans for two more. These ARE food grade plastic 55 gallon barrels with lidsI got for $5 each, had my honey drill out some holes, bought a brass spigot and some washers and screen for the lid. We cut out the lid and replaced it with screen and then cut one of the gutters to go into it and voila...water for flowerbeds, cleaning tools, rinsing feet and hands...and if you have a metal roof on your house, you could use it to water your garden veggies and herbs. I can only use it for ornamental plantings because we have a tar shingle roof. Often I will fill a bucket with enough water for a particular plant and then take it directly to the plant. Some of my plantings have soda bottles in the ground that I fill up with the water. It seeps slowly into the ground around the plant instead of being poured or hosed on and running right off. This helps reduce the amount of water I use to keep things growing. Taking the time to personally water the growing things in my care helps me develop a more personal bond with them, and helps me be more attuned to their needs and more appreciative of what they contribute to mine.
In addition, I recycle. Waste Connections furnishes a bin for $39 for six months with a bar code chip on it. They weigh it at the truck and then email you your notice for how many points you've been awarded. These points are redeemable for gift cards and certificates and coupon codes for websites and restaurants and other cool stuff. So there's an added incentive. Plus, once we started recycling....our non usable trash was less than half what it had been. I also reuse, re-task, and recycle everything I can before it even gets to the recycle bin the first time. Then sometimes I will have a need and think...I can use such and such from the recycle bin...and I pull it back out. I sometimes use the water in the pan in the sink to rinse the recyclable containers like cans from tomato sauce or margarine tubs and the like. So instead of going down the drain this water is either directly fed to my plants ( low cost plant food) or put on the compost. I also think about what I am using to clean with so that I add as little as possible to the water that is going into waste as it winds up in our rivers and eventually the oceans. Using detergents and cleaners that are made of plant oils and baking soda, I spent less money, do less damage to the waste water and my clothes still get clean. I'm still trying to wean my family off the idea that it has to 'smell' like springtime to be clean. It's almost like a sugar addiction the way we seem to NEED things to smell a certain way to believe they are clean. A fresh scent of any kind means that your laundry isn't CLEAN...it means it's coated with some sort of scented residue. I can't even go down the cleaning aisle at the store without gagging and coughing or having my eyes burn...so I don't want the stuff in my water, on my laundry or next to my skin. And I don't want the water I use to launder my clothing permanently bound with chemicals that are only there to make my clothes 'smell clean'. It's the biggest bunch of hooey. They don't have a smell..which is natural, i.e. clean.
There are other things I do to conserve water but these are the things I could think of off the top of my head. I'd love to hear from others with great ideas. Sharing ideas about things we need to be doing is also a way that we can fill those buckets of unity...one drop at a time.
There is not one drop more or less water than there ever has been on the planet. What changes is the amount of CONSUMABLE water that we humans can use to survive. Once the oceans are dead, I'm sure the oil will turn up in the glaciers as well and infiltrate our fresh water supply, if it hasn't already from the million other ways we haven't thought about yet.
So I limit my water usage. I do NOT flush every single time I use the toilet. I keep the lid closed and I may flush the toilet twice per day. I use the restroom far more than that. The water wasted during the shower warm up for most folks is enough to flush your toilet with if you keep a bucket handy. That water is gone forever once it goes down the drain. My showers are getting progressively shorter and cooler as I attempt to wean myself off of hot water and reduce my water usage. I turn off the water while I brush my teeth. I run a pan full of warm water when I begin cooking dinner as well as designate a place for compost-able stuff. I clean my utensils in the water when needed, and use the water for any wiping up I need to do while cooking, cleaning as I go. I try and use one glass, and one plate or bowl per day and I keep a personal water container. I'm still working on mastering using only one fork, knife and spoon, but I will get there. When I am done with the water, depending on what it's got in it, I use it either to water my indoor plants or I add it to the compost bucket. The compose pile has to stay warm and moist. Using water for this isn't needed if I just reuse the water I would normally let go down the drain.
Outside, I have a rain barrel..actually I have two, with plans for two more. These ARE food grade plastic 55 gallon barrels with lidsI got for $5 each, had my honey drill out some holes, bought a brass spigot and some washers and screen for the lid. We cut out the lid and replaced it with screen and then cut one of the gutters to go into it and voila...water for flowerbeds, cleaning tools, rinsing feet and hands...and if you have a metal roof on your house, you could use it to water your garden veggies and herbs. I can only use it for ornamental plantings because we have a tar shingle roof. Often I will fill a bucket with enough water for a particular plant and then take it directly to the plant. Some of my plantings have soda bottles in the ground that I fill up with the water. It seeps slowly into the ground around the plant instead of being poured or hosed on and running right off. This helps reduce the amount of water I use to keep things growing. Taking the time to personally water the growing things in my care helps me develop a more personal bond with them, and helps me be more attuned to their needs and more appreciative of what they contribute to mine.
In addition, I recycle. Waste Connections furnishes a bin for $39 for six months with a bar code chip on it. They weigh it at the truck and then email you your notice for how many points you've been awarded. These points are redeemable for gift cards and certificates and coupon codes for websites and restaurants and other cool stuff. So there's an added incentive. Plus, once we started recycling....our non usable trash was less than half what it had been. I also reuse, re-task, and recycle everything I can before it even gets to the recycle bin the first time. Then sometimes I will have a need and think...I can use such and such from the recycle bin...and I pull it back out. I sometimes use the water in the pan in the sink to rinse the recyclable containers like cans from tomato sauce or margarine tubs and the like. So instead of going down the drain this water is either directly fed to my plants ( low cost plant food) or put on the compost. I also think about what I am using to clean with so that I add as little as possible to the water that is going into waste as it winds up in our rivers and eventually the oceans. Using detergents and cleaners that are made of plant oils and baking soda, I spent less money, do less damage to the waste water and my clothes still get clean. I'm still trying to wean my family off the idea that it has to 'smell' like springtime to be clean. It's almost like a sugar addiction the way we seem to NEED things to smell a certain way to believe they are clean. A fresh scent of any kind means that your laundry isn't CLEAN...it means it's coated with some sort of scented residue. I can't even go down the cleaning aisle at the store without gagging and coughing or having my eyes burn...so I don't want the stuff in my water, on my laundry or next to my skin. And I don't want the water I use to launder my clothing permanently bound with chemicals that are only there to make my clothes 'smell clean'. It's the biggest bunch of hooey. They don't have a smell..which is natural, i.e. clean.
There are other things I do to conserve water but these are the things I could think of off the top of my head. I'd love to hear from others with great ideas. Sharing ideas about things we need to be doing is also a way that we can fill those buckets of unity...one drop at a time.