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Blog Action Day 2010: Water

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic for 2010 is Water:

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

The Blog Action Day people broke it down into four main issues:

1. The problem of scarce clean water: Nearly 1 billion people lack access to clean water, which causes a litany of struggles, diseases and even death.
2. Water over-consumption in industrialized countries: While the developing world faces a water crisis, those in industrialized countries consume far more than their fair share.
3. Water and the environment: The disregard for water resources in industrialized countries impacts more than humans – it causes environmental devastation.
4. Water solutions: The good news is that there are great organizations working on solutions and new tools that empower people to do their part to address the water crisis.

You can read the stats here.

According to several online water consumption calculators, I already lead a low water-consumption lifestyle. I brainstormed for a while and maybe it’s only a few small actions on my part, but everything adds up. I’m a lazy person in general when it comes to my home and personal life, so if I can take these steps, anyone can.

• Start using my Brita Water Filter pitcher again instead of running the tap to get cold water. I used to do this, but I ran out of room in my fridge one day, so the pitcher came out and for some reason (ie: laziness) it never made it back in. I only drink water and orange juice when I’m home, so that ends up being a lot of wasted water every day.
• Reduce my red meat consumption. I’ve had an on-again-off-again relationship with beef for a few years now. Sometimes I’ll go months without, and then I’ll cave and eat nothing but cow for a week. The high water cost of red meat is just one more reason to do without.
• Use a water dam in the toilet tank. ”73 percent of the water you use in your home is either flushed down the toilet or washed down the shower drain.” This is as easy as filling a bottle of water and putting it in the toilet tank. If you can take the time to read this, you can take the time to do that.

One thing I would like to do, but have no idea how to go about doing it, is use less water when I shower and do something with the water afterwards. My shower is extremely finicky, and it takes about 10 minutes to align the taps juuuuust so to find a balance between scalding myself with boiling hot water and freezing to death with ice cold water. Does anyone have any ideas?