Throwing In The Towel

I give up.


I’m throwing in the towel, so to speak.


There are some days I just can’t do anything right, and yesterday was one of them.

Y’all I thought I was doing so good. I thought I was helping the environment.

I washed my car Monday afternoon for the first time in a year. I only did it because I had to get the salt off of it after a trip to Galveston. Usually, my little Honda Element stays dirty. If anyone complains, I just tell them that the splotches of dirt are souvenirs from my trips across Texas.

“Lookit! That’s dirt from Houston. I brought that dirt back from Tyler. That mud splat over there is from Amarillo.”

But, salt water could damage a car’s paint job. Even I know that. If not for that, my little pony would still be carrying road dirt. I figure when the Good Lord wants that car to be clean, She’ll make it rain.

I’d like to tell you I don’t wash the car because I’m conserving water. I’d be lying. The fact of the matter is that I’m just pure “D” lazy. I do try to pay attention to how much water I use, though, when I finally get around to the task. Washing a car can use fifty gallons of water!

When I wash that car, it’s a chore! I try really hard to conserve water by washing it at home. I take a bucket of soapy water, and I dip a towel in it to wash the car by hand. Using the towel helps get off the road grime.

Then, when it’s all washed, I rinse it, and I’m very careful not to waste much water when I do that part of the job. I usually try to wash it where the waste water will go onto a part of the yard that needs it. When it’s rinsed, I get a fresh towel, and wipe it, but usually I’m smearing off some more road grime that didn’t come off the car the first time. I spot wash any areas I missed and dry it all off.

At that point, the car is sparkling clean, and I have a whole load of nasty towels that I have to throw in the wash! Washing a load of laundry can take fifty gallons, too! At this point, I wasted Lord knows how many gallons with my little wash job (and a whole lot of elbow grease)and I’m still going to waste 50 gallons on the towels.

Dang!

Sometimes I can’t do anything right! I give up.

But, wait! I can’t give up! Saving water is important.

Y’all know that most of the water on the planet is salt water. Fresh water makes up only about 2.8% of our water on this earth. It boggles my mind how much we waste. I keep wondering how I can be less wasteful.

• It takes anywhere from 1.5 gallons (with a water saving toilet) to 7 gallons just to flush the toilet, depending on who is doing the calculating. Sometimes, it takes more than one flush to “do the job.” I’m sorry, I can’t save on that one. I insist that toilets be flushed after use (not just for sanitary reasons, but because of FIVE cats who love to “go fishing.”
• A five minute shower can waste 25 gallons a person. Heck, at my house the hot water heater is so far away from the shower, I can waste twenty-five gallons waiting for hot water! Now, when I was a kid there was a slogan, “Save water, shower with a steady.” That was something that teenagers said. Actually, I fear that you could waste more water by doing that. Ahem.
• Filling the bathtub can take 36 gallons, unless you have a huge deep bathtub like mine. I have no idea what it holds. Sometimes, though, one just has to take a long hot soak in the tub.
• Watering the lawn can take 300 gallons! I don’t think the statisticians were looking at the size of my lot (or the Texas weather) when they computed that. If I watered my whole lawn, it would take a lake!
• An average dishwasher uses 9-12 gallons of water. I wash the dishes by hand when I can. I even have two tubs that I use instead of filling the sink. In the summer, when I’m done washing them, I take the dishwater out and put it on the garden.
• One can waste 2 gallons leaving the faucet on while brushing one’s teeth. Can’t a person just fill a cup with water for swishing the toothbrush?
• It takes almost a gallon of water just to boil pasta! How in the heck can I save that boiling water?

I found all these statistics on line at a site from Kansas and one from California. But, every site I perused said something different. Still, it made me realize that I need to start thinking more about how much water I waste.

Now, I know that our ancestors were careful with the water that they had to haul from the creek or from the bottom of the well. To them, every drop of water was precious because it was hard won. With the recent droughts all over the country, I imagine soon water is going to cost us dearly. Will we be more careful with it then?

Or, will we just accept the extra expense as a “cost of living” and keep right on wasting away?

I can tell you one thing for darned sure. If I wash that car again before I sell it, I’m taking it to a car wash! In the long run, it will use a lot less water and I won’t have to wash and fold those towels!

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Tagged as: ecological footprint, environment, waste, water