No Impact Experiment - Day 5

Yes, I missed Day 4, which was Food.  I do pretty well with food. I eat vegetarian a lot. I only eat meat that is locally raised with humane and sustainable practices. I purchase local or organic produce when possible, and dairy and eggs come from a local source.  My biggest downfall is eating out, which I did too much this week.  So, I can work on that, and I need to put together a to go container with cloth napkin and utensils to keep with me when I have to get take out.

Today is water. I always turn the water off when I brush. But, I could definitely do better with handwashing dishes, rinsing instead of scraping (I have an old, ineffective dishwasher), showering shorter, flushing less, and installing low flow shower heads and faucet aerators. Those things sound easy to do, so why have I not done them.  Just one more thing, I guess.

I read a book last year about the lost boys from Sudan. Reading about their daily lives in the camp, about how thirsty they were on their walks across the desert, about the difficulties of getting fresh water in the refugee camps makes me feel 1) very fortunate to live in a place where I have unlimited access to clean, potable water and 2) guilty for not going to greater lengths to conserve it.  It is easy to forget that water is a prescious commodity throughout most of the world when all you have to do is turn on the tap.

I went to the Water Footprint Network to calculate my water footprint. It was 808 cubic meters per year. I did a lot of estimating.  That number is MUCH lower than the national average of 2483. I think the discrepancy is either because I never wash my car or becuase I entered some date wrong. Either way, I know I have some room to improve, and I will be working on that.  Stay tuned, and let me know if you have suggestions for me.