Fresh water is our most precious natural resource. Considering how
important it is to our survival, we should pay more attention to how we
tend to squander it. Our bodies are about 70% water and we need to
consume a great deal every day. We use it for virtually everything we do
from producing food(it takes 10 gallons just to produce a slice of
bread),in industry,in agriculture, for cleaning clothes and for
cleaning ourselves.Only 2.5-3% of all water on Earth is fresh water. Of
that only about 1% is accessible. The Great lakes accounts for 21% of
the world's fresh water.
Americans use about 100 gallons of fresh
water per day , while Europeans use about 50 and sub Saharan Africans
use about 2-5 gallons. Clearly we don't need to use 100 gallons a day,
when others survive on so much less. Now we all have heard jokes about
the French using perfume instead of bathing, but maybe we should emulate
them. Well, to a degree. After checking these numbers, you may agree.
The
typical American shower takes about 8.2 minutes. Multiply this by a
typical shower head using 2.1 gallons of water per minute and we
Americans use about 17.2 gallons of water per shower. About 100,000,000
showers are taken each day in America. By skipping one shower a week,
we would save 1,720,000,000 gallons of fresh water per week. This adds
up to 89,440,000,000 gallons of fresh water saved in a year!
So,
in order to help conserve this most important of resources, I am
proposing that every Wednesday be declared "Shower Free Wednesday".
Why
Wednesday? I could pick any day, but Wednesday is the middle of the
work and school week and, face it, everyone is just trying to get over
the hump and no one will notice a little arm pit stench. Just use a
little extra deodorant and forget about it. And your skin will thank you
for a day without all the drying out from too much bathing.
I'm serious about conserving water, so please share this with everyone on the planet. Make "Shower Free Wednesday" a reality.
Next time I will talk about conserving toilet flushes with "Pee outside Thursday"
