Water

Been a bit too busy to post lately, but have been thinking about this a lot lately. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have plenty of water (usually) and sadly this means we are often less concerned about how much of it we use. I have lived all over the country, and overseas, and in some of those places it was much harder to take water for granted. When I was a teenager in Southern California for example, we went so far as to build a gray water irrigation system to water our gardens and other plants (essentially by hooking up the drain from the bathtub to a 55 gallon drum and then connecting a hose/spigot to the drum).

Here in Seattle, with all our glorious rainfall, rain barrels make a lot of sense for keeping the garden, potted plants, or grass watered in the summer. They don't cost too much either (a few summers of use should recoup the cost), but I got to thinking... what about people who live in apartments or condos, what about people who don't have yards that need watering, what about something even cheaper and easier that could save at least several hundred gallons of water every year? There must be something suited to this market, something small and compact, sleek, or technologically sophisticated. Oh, but there is... and its called a bucket! I prefer the 2 - 3 gallon type for indoor use, the 5 gallon type for outdoor. But how can these really help you save hundreds of gallons of water each year?

1. catch rainwater to water your potted plants when the sun is out (add a couple drops of bleach if warm weather sets in to kill mosquitoes).

2. better yet, put one in your shower or bathtub to catch the cold water as your shower heats up. Some people have on-demand hot water or just faster delivery of hot water to their showers, but it takes a full 45 - 60 seconds for my shower to warm up. During that time I can catch 1 - 2 gallons of water every time I take a shower. In the summer, that is enough to water a lot of potted plants. During the rainy months (when they don't need to be watered) it can be used to flush the toilet.

Ew! I know, kind of gross and or inconvenient, but hey, it works just fine. Instead of that water just going down the shower drain, I can flush the yellow stuff away a few times every day without using any extra water (since I am using water that would have gone down the drain in the shower). All I have to do is pour a gallon or so into the bowl and that's it, wallah, a fresh bowl (no need to pull the handle or do anything else). And if you're thinking to yourself... that's fine tin, but I just pee in the shower anyway... (ahem). Sure, while that's all well and good, I assume you might have to pee again later, and so... why not do both? I figure one 2 -3 gallon bucket will save me at least 300 gallons of water a year. The five gallon buckets I use to catch rainwater will save me maybe a hundred more (I have 5 of these, catching rainwater in the spring and during the few rain showers we have up here in the summer... but after late September, there isn't much use for them until May).

But what else can we do with water, especially the free stuff that falls from the sky? I've long felt that we should be collecting it, using it, to do things like generate some power and or other useful purpose. A friend (he knows who he is) has mentioned micro hydro installations in people's homes, catching rainwater from gutters to make small amounts of electricity. I am thinking why not catch it at the sewer level, where all the rainwater flows together from a neighborhood? We could be generating several hundred kWh of electricity in the sewers of any neighborhood in the greater Seattle area every month from October to April. We wouldn't have to worry about chopping up salmon either! :o)

It isn't that hard to find small ways to make differences. It isn't hard to make better use of things we take for granted or simply don't notice. And in the case of the bucket, it's even cheaper to be greener than!

-tinhart