Before the water runs dry

In today’s fast-paced, cyber-linked world, it would be hard to imagine working without the Internet. Most of us would probably feel pretty desperate. Well, how about trying to live a day without water, a real every-day nightmare for some people. I know how it feels.

After suffering from a one-day emergency shutdown of my local water supply, which prevented me from getting a single drop of water from the tap, let alone showering or flushing the toilet, I started to think how ironic it is that on a planet where water covers 71 percent of its surface, I suddenly had no.

But when I learned that just over 2 percent of the total volume of water in the global cycle is fresh water, and that most of that is locked up as polar ice caps and in glaciers, I became horrified.

Yes, horrified at the thought of more than 6 billion people sharing this small amount of water that is available. It made me wonder: is there anything I can do to use this precious resource more wisely?

Act of random kindness

That question leads me to one of my favorite lines from the movie Evan Almighty: “How do we change the world? By doing one act of random kindness at a time”. It’s a message that applies to all aspects of life, including in conserving water.

So, to begin with, I started to list some of my water-consuming activities. And from various sources, I found out that taking a bath is the biggest water consumer (about 45 percent of the total daily consumption), followed by toilet flushing (25 percent) and kitchen activities (15 percent).

A survey conducted in 2006 by the Directorate of Water Development of the Public Works Ministry showed that the average daily use of fresh water in Indonesia was 144 liters per person. Based on that figure, bathing, flushing and kitchen activities represent 65, 36 and 21.5 litres respectively or 122.5 liters in total. Assuming the Indonesian population represents around 230 million people, all having equal access to 122.5 litres per day, can you imagine what happens to that 2% of global fresh water? You do the math!

Those numbers have given me a stronger urge to be more efficient with my personal consumption of fresh water. So, I started off with my bathroom. First, I readjusted the showerhead to a low-flow version and took shorter showers, less than 5 minutes long, since that could already reduce my water use approximately by half.

Second, I tried a simple trick suggested by a friend to save water in the toilet tank, by placing a one-liter plastic bottle filled with water in the tank. This way, I save one liter of fresh water every time I flush the toilet. If the toilet is used 10 times a day, I have already saved10 liters of fresh water.

And since I am not really a kitchen type of person, I believe my water spending in that department wouldn’t exceed 10 liters per day.

So in total, I could save around 56.5 liters per day from bathroom and kitchen activities. Not bad for a start, as there are still more things that can be done to efficiently use water.

How to do it

It’s all about choices. All we have to do is to choose the most efficient way water conserving method. Here is a list of steps to get started:

1. Brushing teeth with tap water running for 1 minute = 6 liters
Brushing teeth with a glass of water = 0.5 litres

2. Taking a bath = 100 liters
Taking a 5-minute shower = 30 liters

3. Leaking tap/toilet = 100 liters per day
New type of toilet flush = 6 liters (1/2 flush = 3 liters)

4. Top loading washing machine = 150 liters
Front loading washing machine = 100 liters

5. Washing dishes for 15 minutes with tap water running = 90 liters
Washing dishes in a soaking sink = 45 liters

About greenLifestyle: GL is a mailing list to share information and tips on greening your lifestyle in Indonesia’s cities. How to save on utility bills? Where to recycle paper in Java and Bali? Reducing the amount of water you use at home? Send questions (in Indonesian or English) to greenLifestyle@googlegroups.com.

(From "The Jakarta Post Weekender")

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