Drip, drip, drip. Silently in the bathroom the faucet leaks. No one cares. Why is that? One would argue it’s only a couple of drops, what difference does it make? Or it might take to long to fix it. Or, the best excuse of all, I just don’t feel like it. Many excuses are made when it comes to fixing and solving an environmental or a natural resource issue, like water. We, as people, need to understand that wasting water has a huge effect on our environment. “We just don’t need water; we need drinkable water”, Eric Corey Freed states. Water is essential to the earth and the inhabitants that live on it; however, too much water is being used up. People that waste water need to conserve it through understanding of the water cycle, knowing the statistics of wasting water and applying simple changes in their daily lives.
Understanding the water cycle is a great start to learning why wasting water is not beneficial. Water can be anywhere on this earth, in the atmosphere, on the earth, in a lake or ocean, and even underground. Water travels through a cycle every second of the day, constantly being recycled and used by humans. Water first enters the atmosphere leaving the earth through a process called evaporation. Other processes such as sublimation and transpiration also allow water to travel through the atmosphere. Once water evaporates and it is in the atmosphere it cools significantly. When the vapor cools down, tiny water beads are formed through condensation. The water beads join together to form clouds. After time more beads of water join and the clouds become larger. Eventually it is too much to hold and precipitation is then the result.
Even though water goes through a cycle on a daily basis it does not mean water is produced. There is still only a certain amount of water on this earth. However, people have found ways to recycle water but not in the terms where it is drinkable. Most commonly the water that is reused or recycled is being used for agricultural and irrigation. Where does that leave humans with recycled water? The water is not fully decontaminated of bacteria, which can cause diseases and other health problems down the road. Wasting water results in depletion for usage, especially fresh water, which is used for drinking purposes for humans and animals, hygiene use, and leisure use. As time goes on more energy is put into recycling water, the cost for developing and installing these systems become higher.
The earth is made up of seventy percent of water. Different types of water are placed around the world. Ocean, seas and bays make up 96.54% of the water on earth. In a broad spectrum, that is a lot of water. But it is not drinkable water. This is where people don’t understand. Most of the water on earth is not drinkable. The other 3% of water is used for that purpose. About .76% of our fresh water comes from the ground. People turn to ground water when the area they live in is scare of a large body of water. Another .007% of fresh water comes from lakes. In America both ground and source water is used. In 2000, about 323 billion gallons of water per day was consumed from surface water and 84.5 billion gallons of water per day was from the ground. That is more water needed then we should be using, and as the years go on, the number of gallons used only increases.
Everyone contributes to making the number of gallons of water we use on a daily basis. Every year more people enter the United States in many ways. This leads to more use of water. We use 127% more water now than we did in 1950. On average a person will use 80 – 100 gallons of water a day. Here’s a shocker, about 95% of the water that enters our home goes down the drain. Now people must be thinking, no we use the water. However, we use that water to flush the toilet, take a shower, brush our teeth, and wash our face which all goes down the drain. The other 5% is used for watering plants and animals, and for humans to drink. The largest factor that wastes the most water is flushing a toilet. There are local government’s laws specifically saying that only a certain amount of water per minutes should come out of faucets, showers, and toilets.
Simple changes can be made through out homes to ensure that no excess water is being wasted. The first step to take is to decide for yourself if you want to make the small changes. Here is ten examples from the Water – Use it Wisely website of what people can do to conserve water.
One, when washing hands and brushing your teeth don’t let the water run. Two, upgrade toilets, faucets, and shower heads to have less water being used per minute. Three, shorten your shower by five minutes. Four, adjust your sprinkler so that the lawn is getting watered. Five, fix those leaky faucets, people can save up to 140 gallons a week. Six, run your dishwasher and washer when they are full, 1, 000 gallons can be saved in one month. Seven, soak pots and pans instead of leaving the water run when they are being cleaned. Eight, wash pets outside where the water could be used by the lawn. Nine, use a broom or vacuum not a hose to clean basement or garage floors. Ten, spread the news to friends and work on how to help save water.
Again the question may come up, why save water? Well many reasons are out there about saving this precious resource. People might argue that the ocean water can be taken and be purified. Also another example is the ice caps can used to provide fresh water. Although these suggestions are worth thinking about they can be time consuming and costly at the same time. It takes a lot of technology and money to take the bacteria and salt out of the water and then ways to distribute it out to people. The website Maps of World explains, even though purified seawater can be produced in a large amount it can’t be used for human or other purposes. The saline level in the water, after it has been purified, is dangerous to the health of people. This can hurt farmer’s crops and cause our body cells to become dehydrated. Taking water from the ocean would be risky, it threatens the life that many people that live there and not many people would like to drink purified ocean water.
So again, why save water? It helps save water for fish and animals, water supplies for drinking will be preserved, and water treatment plants won’t be over burdened. Another benefit to saving water is saving money. Families will see that more money will be left over every time their water bill is paid.
By living your lives in a more consciousness way of saving water we are helping our nation become more eco-friendly and help reduce the cost of developing new machines to recycle or purify water. Even though the recycled water is being brought back to the environment does not mean it is 100% efficient for what people are using it for. We are wasting water and don’t know it. It’s hurting our ecosystem and will affect our lives and the future generations to come. If they don’t have fresh water to drink, what will happen to the human population?