The Quickest, Easiest Way to Save Water
By Jon Fisher, The Nature Conservancy
Meat eating is seldom mentioned as a water conservation issue and many Americans fall for the notion that gluttonous water consumption can be brought under control if we can only remember to turn off the tap while we brush our teeth. — Hardly Waite, Pure Water Gazette.
I admit it: I’m kind of obsessed with saving water. Not only have I done everything possible at home (low-flow toilets, showerhead, washer/dryer, dishwasher, etc.), I even stealthily installed a faucet aerator in the bathroom of a favorite restaurant of mine. Since bathrooms in businesses get a lot of use, I couldn’t resist the 4.5 gallons per minute savings. But what if I told you that you could save even more water than me, without being a total weirdo? What if it was free?
In the United States, the average person uses about 69 gallons of water at home indoors per day (25,295 gallons per year) and about 100 gallons of water per day (36,500 gallons per year) if you include outdoor use like watering a lawn. While that is already a lot of water, this number doesn’t even represent all our water use. In fact, the water we use at home is just 3.6% of our total water use! Another 4.4% is industrial, and a whopping 92% is agricultural (food and fiber).
Home water use is declining in the U.S., and you can join in on the fun by saving about 25 gallons per day with standard conservation measures (like low-flow showers). But if you really want to use less water, you can save far more than that by making one tiny change in your diet on a weekly basis.
The trick here is to reduce the portion of water use that goes to agriculture (92%) by choosing different foods. Just as we can calculate a person’s “carbon footprint” to measure their total contribution towards climate change, we can do the same with water. Your “water footprint” includes both your direct and indirect water use (e.g. the water used to produce products you buy), and includes both the consumption andpollution of water. In the U.S. the average annual water footprint per capita is 750,777 gallons; the global average is less than half of that at 365,878 gallons.
So, here’s the quickest, easiest way to reduce your water footprint: Once per week, eat a soy burger instead of a hamburger. That’s it. That single swap saves you a whopping 579 gallons each time, and if you do it once per week it adds up to saving 30,111 gallons per year (more than your total indoor water use at home).
If you also drink a cup of soy milk instead of cow’s milk you can save another 47 gallons each time (2,447 gallons per year if you make the switch once per week). So between the burger and the milk, that’s a total savings of 32,559 gallons per person per year, enough to take 814 baths. Trust me, choosing soy products instead of cow products is a lot easier than trying to save that much water at home (and way easier than installing aerators at restaurants, which requires stealth).
Think about that: you could shut off your water at home (no toilet, no shower, no washing machine, etc.) and still have less impact than switching from beef to soy once per week*.
Inspired? The average American eats 57.3 pounds of beef and drinks 20 gallons of milk per year; swap that all out for soy and save 115,396 gallons of water each year! If you don’t like soy, there are plenty of other options.
You can educate yourself on how much water various foods and drinks require at a fantastic web site put out by the Water Footprint Network. (Before you click over, let me warn you: you may not want to know.)
So if you find yourself pulling your hair out because you can’t afford a front-loading washer, or if it starts to seem like a good idea to leave a spare aerator and a wrench in your backpack (just in case), remember there’s an easier way.
* Note that if you wanted to offset your outdoor water use as well as indoor use, be prepared to switch another 1.6 cups of milk a week for soy milk.
See also on this website details about how the US out-consumes much larger countries in overall water use because of our high meat consumption.
