UNITED STATES—I’m not an environmentalist, but I would like to believe that I do my best to not pollute our planet. Nothing annoys me more than seeing tons of trash littered in the streets, outside my house, on the freeways or the countless parks throughout the city where I live. So I pick it up and discard it, if at all possible. With that being said, I think the one resource that is wasted more than anything is water.
Think about that before you say, well I pay for it, so who cares if I waste or just run water without considering the possibility that there are lots of people around the world who don’t have access to water, let alone clean water. I think I’m the only person I know who wets his toothbrush for like one second, turns off the water and brush my teeth without the water running.
I had to psychologically think about that for a second: why am I running the water? If I’m brushing my teeth and not using the water it should not be on. It is just common sense, but we have this habit of just doing it and not realizing we can conserve water and lower our water bill at the same time. This also applies to our daily routine of bathing. This might result in a quick wash-up at the sink or a bath or shower.
I see the shower as more a problem then the sink and the bath. Why? Some people don’t realize running water and not getting into the shower is a waste of water. If you turn on that shower, you should be expected to get right into that shower. Why the hell are you running the water for 10-15 minutes before you get into the shower? If you’re not ready to get into the shower, you should not be running that water America. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out, but I think this goes to those who don’t pay bills.
I’ve come to the realization that those who don’t pay a water bill have no mentality of how wasteful they are with water until they are forced to pay the bill to begin with. Water waste also applies to lawn care. I don’t understand the logic of running water on the grass if you know it’s going to rain. Let Mother Nature take care of your lawn and soil, and guess what it’s not going to cost you any money! Who doesn’t like to save money America, I know I do.
The thing that gets me the most is how we don’t realize how important a resource that water is until we no longer have it. You might say, what do you mean by that? Imagine there being a water main break and you don’t have access to water. Could you go a week without water? Most Americans cannot go a day without water, so think about those individuals living in third world countries who DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO WATER on a daily basis.
That is crippling, yet we have access to water and we waste gallons just running water to brush our teeth, using the dishwasher, washing a small load of clothes instead of a larger load or wait for it just allowing water to run to water the grass or to take a shower. We’re wasteful America and we need to stop it. I think we’d appreciate water much more if we knew we had to travel miles each day to gain access to clean and safe drinking water, but we don’t. We have that luxury to just get out of bed and turn on the faucet. There are so many people who do not have that resource, so treasure it while we have it, there’s no telling what can happen between today and tomorrow.
