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First thing I do with water when I wake up is brush my teeth and wash my mouth. I used to need up to 4 glasses (about a litre) of water for that, but now I use only two glasses and I still clean my mouth as well as before. If I continue saving that half litre everyday, by the end of the year I would have saved about 180 litres of water.
I do not like doing the dishes; at times, everything gets so annoying that the mere thought of having to turn the tap off and on adds to my frustration. But I now take my time to turn the tap on only when necessary, and off when required. It turns out the tap stays off for about a quarter of all the time I spend doing dishes. Comparing both outcomes, I realize no less than 5 litres are saved each time I wash plates. If I do the dishes only twice everyday, I will be saving 10 litres daily and about 3,650 litres annually.
Next thing I do every morning with water is water flowers around the house. I stopped using a hose because as long as I watered the plants, the water kept running even while I walked from one flower pot to the other. That made me use up about 40 litres of water every morning on plants alone. Now I use a bucket and bowl to carry and pour the water. I now use less than 20 litres on flowers daily, and if I decide to water the plants only once in two days, they would still be healthy and I could save even more water. In all, I will be saving about 180 litres every week, making 9,360 litres of water I can save yearly.
To wash my parents’ cars everyday, I also used a hose in such a manner that even while I scrubbed the dirt off the cars with a sponge, the water kept running – wasting on the ground. When I started using a bucket and bowl, I could wash for as long as I wanted and the water remained in the bucket. I pour water at my discretion now, saving me about half of the minimum 60 litres I spent on washing two cars every morning. I now also use a rag to clean the cars on some mornings. I don’t actually wash them on 3 days of the week. I now save about 30 litres every 4 days of the week and all the 60 litres on the other 3 days. That makes 300 litres per week and some 15,600 litres every year.
I had a hard time coming to terms with the idea of stretching water conservation to the bathroom. The excess time I spent in the shower was arguably the most refreshing for all day long. But I have now learnt how unsustainable that habit is, and I spend only as much time as I need to clean up in the bathroom. Consequently, I have cut out close to 5 minutes of letting the shower flow, saving about 40 litres of water anytime I have a bath. I used to shower as often as I had the time to (the weather stays hot around my area), now I bath only in the mornings and just before going to bed everyday. I now save 80 litres of water from skipping two shower sessions daily. That makes up to 29,200 litres in annual savings.
I will not compromise my drinking water.
I could go a step further by installing products like low flush toilets and water efficient taps in my house so the entire household consumption can fall by say 15 to 20%. Suppose, according to Maria’s estimates, I require 250 litres per day to lead a quality life, my parents would also require 500 litres, and then adding up for my big brother would bring total household water consumption to 1,000 litres per day. If I actually install new water efficient fixtures in my home, that will lead to saving 150 to 200 litres daily. The resultant yearly water savings I would have initiated within my family will equal about 70,000 litres. Yet this is just a modest estimate as Maria pointed out in her work that “in the city of Buenos Aires about 630 litres a day are being used per capita.” If then I were an Argentine, my family’s water savings would total up to 182,500 litres per year.
So far I have tried to run through most of the daily uses of water I encounter. To prove that these are far from exhaustive, I have made no mention of water for cooking, laundry or such other purposes. For now, if we put together all the results highlighted above from the time I wake to when I sleep, we should find that I – by myself – can save 240,490 litres of water yearly. The last time I checked on the water crises among the poor, that quantity would have been sufficient for over 32 people all year through or for over 12,000 people in a day. If half of Nigeria’s 140 million conserve water like this, we would be saving 16,834,300,000,000 litres of water annually, and that’s only from our own tiny part of the globe! Just imagine how much more astounding the results will look like if we multiply whole country, sub-regional or regional populations by the quantity of water I can save.
Let me begin to conclude by stating that this simple practice is not about cutting back on the essential water we need, rather it is about minimizing the water we needlessly waste. This essay may be flawed for its perhaps Utopian inclinations; weakened by its departure from an absolute intellectual endeavour; and, trivialized as another blanket appeal to “common sense”; yet its strength lies in the concept of individual responsibility.
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Writer Profile
Terhemba Aindigh
Terhemba Aindigh is currently with the Nigerian National Youth Service Corps. Having obtained a first degree in International Relations at Covenant University, Nigeria, with a flair for writing professionally, Terhemba enjoys making commentaries on issues that command worldwide relevance.
His essays have earned him an enviable reputation both nationally and internationally. Some of his writings have ensured his active participation in international conferences like the prestigious St. Gallen Symposium, South American Business Forum, and the Model World Trade Organization. He has also been awarded for exceptional writing by the World Bank and the World Federation of United Nations' Associations.
Most recently, Terhemba was announced as one of the 15 winners of an international essay, video and poster competition sponsored by the World Federation of United Nations Associations. This ensured his participation in the Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World Seminar, held at the United Nations Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. Consequently, he and the other winners were inspired to birth a global anti-nuclear weapons youth network.
As a founding member of the Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World Youth Initiative, Terhemba and his colleagues have taken up the immense responsibility to help in realizing a world free of nuclear weapons.
At present, he is doing what he loves to do best: writing more essays to compete in the likes of the Japanese Foreign Trade Council and Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library essay competitions, amongst others.
His ultimate ambition is to attain the heights of great men like Kofi Annan, who have made no little contribution to ensuring that our world is peaceful and just.
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Comments
De Maria Heyaca maria heyaca | Feb 29th, 2008
Dear Terhemba Aindigh;
This is Maria Heyaca; I have just read your article about water scarcity, includying your comments about my essay. I am very much honored to know its ideas inspired you. I wanted to thank you sincerely for your great regards about the essay and invite you to freely contact me. Cheers, Maria (mfheyaca@yahoo.co.uk)
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