Conserving water . . . outside the box.

Every home should have one I would like to share with you three water conserving ideas that, if practiced on a wide scale, would help ease some of the pressure on one of our most valuable renewable resources. I know that nothing is really new any more, but hopefully these will be of benefit to someone.

The first one I bring to you as a question: why do we not have urinals in our homes as we do in nearly all public places? There is no reason to use just as much water to flush urine as we do to flush feces. In fact, there are already several designs for waterless urinals, which are a whole lot less expensive than composting toilets.
There is more to consider here. If you decrease the diameter of your drain line on a urinal to that of common aquarium hose size, a fine spray could be used to thoroughly flush the bowl for as long as 15 seconds . . . and use less than 2 oz. of water. You could still have a little micro-trap in your line and block off air just as in a conventional urinal. Since you would use so little water, adding a little sanitizer to your flush source would be cost effective too.
Another important consideration is that urine is clinically sterile and really doesn’t have to be flushed at all. Now of course many municipalities with their codes may disagree with this, but where it is permitted or not regulated, urine could be discreetly drained straight outdoors into a middle layer of a compost pile (for instance) and never be a bother or even noticed by anyone. Not to mention the fact that uirne is an organic fertilizer.
Where this would not be permitted, well perhaps some codes need to be rewritten.

A second way to use less water is with your plants or in your garden. Did you know that the very same polyacrylate that is used effectively to store water in disposable diapers is what is sold (at very high prices) as a moisture retaining soil additive. Diapers that have only been urinated on (remember: clinically sterile) can have the filling removed and used to dramatically increase your soil’s ability to hold water.
Disposable diapers comprise a significant portion of materials going to our landfills. It is estimated that with transportation and tipping fees, it costs around 10 cents each to dispose of one. And yet when this very same material is sold as a soil additive, it usually lists for more than $10.00 per pound!!!! Yes, over $200 for 50 lbs.!!! Whether a person were to take advantage of this by using the wet diapers from their own child . . . or a viable system were implemented that collected and processed the material on a larger scale, the potential to do a lot of good and create a huge win (conserve water) win (less landfill waste) is very real.

The third way to save water is nothing more than common sense, but for some reason it doesn’t get much mention (specifically) when talking about insulating your home. You can dramatically reduce the amount of water you use while taking a shower . . . by simply increasing the insulation around your shower space.
Here is why. As we all know, the finer the spray, the less water is used, but we have all noticed that the finer the spray, the cooler the shower feels. This is because the smaller droplets increase the combined surface area which results in greater heat loss from the water. This in turn causes us to turn our faucet to a higher temp and run the water hotter (and harder) to make up for the comfort loss while the water looses its heat.
If you enclose your shower stall with insulated material, the water will stay much warmer and allow you to spray a finer spray and in return use less water. I am not going to try to tell you all of the hundreds of ways that this could be done . . . some could be strictly practical with little concern for appearances, while others would have to consider the elegance of the bathroom that holds the shower.
All I am saying is that the smaller the space that you shower in (including how high the ceiling is above the nozzle) the less heat that will be lost to air.
If you could shower inside one (or two . . layered) large plastic bags, hanging upside down in your shower, or inside a Styrofoam shell, you could take a very comfortable shower using very little water set at a surprisingly low temp. This would be impractical to most, but anything you do to better insulate the area where you shower, and make it as small as possible while you are using it . . . will make a big difference.
For my own preference, I don’t like my face area to be too hot. I like a hot shower with cooler air around my face. I have tightened up my shower space with space restricting insulated walls and a thick insulated pad overhead. There is a Styrofoam insulated plastic door that swings closed in front of me, but it only goes up to shoulder height; keeping the area in front of my face open. This works very well for me.
If you take baths, see if there is a way to fill the cavity around your tub with a can of spray foam.
And don’t forget . . . the higher the faucet is above you, the more heat is lost before it gets to you.
Our shower has three seperate faucets at three heights, one for me . . . one for my wife . . .and one for our young children.

No matter what you do to save water or energy; remember that when a whole lot of people do even a little bit, a whole lot of good is done.

When it comes to conserving our resources and living more environmentally responsible, it usually involves some level of sacrificing comfort. Not to say that a little self denial is always a bad thing, but being able to indulge ourselves in comfort once in a while, without actually wasting any resources, is nice too.

For more outside the box ideas . .. go to www.pandscorp.org