One of the things that has come up for me before I've even left the US is the issue of water usage. In one of our planning meetings, I asked about the rule of 2-3 minute showers. I was told that was very long for the Guatemalan people we will be staying with and that we shouldn't shower every day. I asked how it was possible to take that short of a shower. More than one person said it was possible.
On Saturday, I timed myself. I didn't overly rush but I also only washed 1/4 of my body thoroughly, 1/2 pretty well and 1/2 not at all. Time: 7:18. I don't know how I'm going to do this other than turning the water on and off. Next timing will measure only the amount of time the water is on.
But when I pressed the other people in our meeting about this, they started giving me facts about how scarce water is. I don't doubt that it is, in Guatemala, but it's not up here. Especially when I drive over about a billion gallons of it every day. My biggest issue at our last condo board meeting was that people were using too much water where I have to pay a portion (because we get one water bill for the whole building).
Aside from that fact, I started thinking about how I got to the point where I would take a hot, hour long shower on the weekend and not even blink. I think it's because over the years, I have structured my life around the environment and not around people. I only cared about the plants and animals that lived on this planet. I am a rabid recycler/composter and pretty good a energy saving (although that could be improved). I buy local when I have the option between two pretty equal products. We made sure we purchased a condo (not a house) with a walk score of more than 90 (our is 92). I thought that this one transgression could be overlooked because of all the other good things I do.*
All of that being said, I realized that my new-found insight that people matter (simply because I decide they do) has not been fully applied to my life. I say that people matter, I tell them how and why I care about them, I've been trying to do more to really demonstrate that through my action. However; I haven't really taken a look at why I perform every action that I do and re-evaluate some of the assumptions I've made in the past.
Taking all of this into account and trying to determine if and how I should change my behavior, I'm thinking about how my use of water would impact people in Guatemala. If I used less water, would they get more water? Of course not. So I need to think about the real impact of me using water, here in the PNW.
Water usage and ‘waste’ is a real tough one to gauge though. In urban areas in the US, water is recycled efficiently, and kept extremely clean through complicated filtering systems. As such, water ‘wasted’ by a hi-flow flushing toilet, for example, isn’t gone and used up… it’s all recycled back into the system. In the US, water-waste is typically about the energy required for complicated pumping systems and (ridiculously) bottled water manufacturing / waste. Carbon footprint style stuff...
ReplyDeleteGood luck in Guatemala.
Recently I learned on the discovery channel how many Americans and in other more affluent areas of the world our underground reservoirs in the U.S. are being depleted rapidly. Natural spring water and underground glaciers levels have diminished to such an extent that the water tables we all depend upon for our survival are being siphoned for sale on our grocery shelves. Government agencies monitoring toxins and impurities in tap water, though quality does vary some from one water shed to the next, basically tell us it's ok to drink it. So why must we spend money time and energy frivolously perpetuating something as negative as bottled water, unless we live in an area that has a poor quality supply? makes you wonder sometimes...
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