Shower thoughts are wasting water.

Gnugit@aussie.zone to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 287 points –

My city is in the middle of the worst drought in recorded history. My showers are typically under 2 minutes and I have to shower with a bucket to catch otherwise wasted water to use to flush the toilet. I also shut the water down when I am wet enough so I can scrub myself without having unneeded water flowing then start it back up to rinse.

Plus, water is damn expensive!

Who here really has the time to stand, think and waste in the shower?

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Well I live in a rainy part of the UK, and we basically had rain all month, so longer showers are probably more likely helping avoid the reservoir flooding over here

I guess the one upside to this situation is our water isn't even metered, we just pay a flat rate every quarter

I live in the wettest region of south west australia nearby the historically coldest, wettest town in the state. We normally get 9 wet months a year but we're are half way through the season and so far only had 1.5 wet months.

Who here really has the time to stand, think and waste in the shower?

People not in a drought. It's been quite wet here in Switzerland recently :-D

Lucky you. The rising temperature has driven the low pressure systems south and they mostly seem to be bypassing the whole south of australia. I hope this doesn't mean now we will start getting cyclones where we are at..

I believe you're looking for thoughtsaboutshowers.

But.. Thoughts about showers aren't also shower thoughts?

Only if they happen in the shower, and there's no way you had time to think about all that during a drought.

You caught me out, it was while I was dressing after my shower.

I don't use a shower, rather, I have a bucket (or two) of water and a dipper. I can ruminate and think about things while giving myself a thorough scrubbing, and not consume any water.

I can take as much time as I need (much to the irritation of people I live with) without consuming any more water.

To absolutely minimise the water usage you could do a more old school "shower" by just putting some water in a bucket with a sponge.

  1. Put some water on your body with a quick sponge rinse.
  2. Apply soap.
  3. Use sponge to rinse off soap.

Then later use the bucket as toilet refill.

Who here really has the time to stand, think and waste in the shower?

Me, my village gets its water from a spring in the mountains above that provides many times what we consume. Water is just a flatrate utility. The energy to heat it comes exclusively from photovoltaics and solar thermal panels between April and October. Standing under the hot shower is literally free for me in those months.

Rest of the year, eh, okay I either pay for electricity or stuff four more pieces of wood into the stove for half an hour worth of hot shower water, so, basically free as well.

All of our dams are at 100% and overflowing, if anything we need to use more water to reduce overflowing

We've been getting tons of rain here, but we are still in an outdoor water ban.

Between 8-5, no lawn watering (except golf courses and businesses), no washing your car (except at a car wash), no watering your ornamental plants (except for farms and garden stores). No filling your pool (even a kiddie pool) or running through the sprinkler (except at the water park).

It's not because of drought, but because one of our water sources is offline due to elevated PFAS, so they are blending water from other reservoirs, and those sources combined can't make up the extra demand.

And also protecting businesses by making sure we can't wash our own cars or lollygag through our own sprinklers. Gotta pay for that privilege.

We have to pay...for the privilege...of lollygagging through our sprinklers.

I get the lawn part. I hate lawns. But my yard is also a barren mud pit. I gotta put something down. Trying for mostly clover and other plants that don't need a ton of water, but they still need to stay moist to germinate and start off, and that's real tough to do if you can't water it during the hottest parts of the day. I don't really care what grows as long as it holds the dirt together and it's comfortable to walk on barefoot.

It is easier for the government to reduce water usage of businesses than individuals. It saves water when they can mandate that the car washes save water.

I kind of miss having a nice, long, hot, thoughtful shower..

But now you can feel responsible and morally superior to the silly water-wasters

I envy silly water wasters because I miss my long thoughtful hot showers. But I do admit my newfound superiority is amazing!

They could just open it up

depends on region. my region has enough water. still, most people try to not waste it. water has to be treated before it goes back into nature and people understand it helps to minimize this process.

but it's more about the routine anyway. you get used to the movements you make in the shower, so the brain starts to trail off. doesn't mean you just stop moving and think. that usually only happens when you're traumatized or so.

Is it not normal to have a period of complete motionlessness in the shower?

Sometimes i'll do this in the winter. We try to minimize heat/AC energy usage, and i get cold easily, so once i'm in the nice warm shower it takes a minute to work up the courage to make the mad dash to get my clothes back on lol

If you enjoyed it, is it really wasted?

I can get behind this, I often count little things that cost and justify it by expenditure on entertainment.

Bro, I freaking feel you, I am in the same situation as yours, it has been better these days, thanks to a fucking cyclone lol (Alberto).

We literally had no water for 2 weeks, and the longest I remember to be without water since I have memory is no more than a day or two.

Lots of blocks were waterless and my dad (and many other persons) started to hunt for water in regions where they had (water was disgusting and with very low pressure though), so it was normal to watch lots of vehicles with "Rotoplas" attached to them, very very Mad Max like.

I fucking laugh when I read people recommending a bidet instead of toilet paper all around here on Lemmy or Reddit, like dude, I was taking a fucking shower for two weeks (I know this might sound like rookie numbers in some other places) with a freaking Carl's Jr plastic glass of "The Batman" movie LMAO (Batman to the rescue), also with not so good quality water too, I'd rather keep with toilet paper and wipes.

Nowadays the city is kinda flooded thanks to the storm, and the lagoons have gained some of the level they lost (they were almost dry) which is kinda dystopic to me to have these extreme changes in a matter of several weeks (talking about climate change huh).

Damn, it sounds like your area needs some good reservoirs.

This is when you keep with the same infrastructure of 1900 something in an ever growing city lol.

Why? Doesn't you city council or similar organization want to take care of its citizens?

Until this day there hasn't been a statement from that man about the matter, and he just won as a federal deputy in the recent elections smfh.

Also the state president allegedly said that he would not declare this situation as an emergency situation because this is the way of how to live nowadays, and he is very proud he sent "tons" of pipes to the people LMAO (it could also be fake news from Facebook, but I would not be surprised, also ppl said those pipes were for show off, and they were empty lol).

Anyway nowadays there is sufficient water, or so it seems, that some crocodiles are walking on the streets LMAO (if you wanna guess where I live, I would not blame you).

So, when you take a shower, all you think is "scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse"?

When I shower, it's all pretty automatic and muscle memory kinds of actions. My mind wanders all over the place, usually while listening to music /podcasts /audio books, but rarely do I think about the actual act of bathing.

Thoughts taken:

Is the water running into the bucket when heating?

Is the water warming yet so I can get my head under comfortably and wet it to get shampoo in?

Quick, get the shampoo rub it in before I need to add cold so I don't get burnt.

Water is perfect now, that's nice. Turn and rub it in.

Is it warm enough in the bathroom so I can afford to turn off water and lather myself?

Ok, now i'm lathered, let's get those hard to reach places.

Turn on the water. Try to aim for taps to be at the same position so I don't get burnt. (I have temperature variation from solar hot water)

Rinse, quick, let's rinse. Dont fall over the bucket Gnugit!

Turn off taps now and quick, dry your hands so you can reply to Sprunt on lemmy.

Oh, the shower timer only says ~1/4 of 4 minutes this time, that was efficient.

Hmm, maybe I can finally make a post to c/showerthoughts...

Are you limited to either having a thought or moving your body at any given time? I hope you don't drive cars or perform other activities that require more than zero thoughts at once.

I just had a shower and while I was in there I was thinking about how I could become more like you. Could you give me some advice please?

That's very astute of you but have you ever had a shower in under two minutes and washed your whole body? There isn't much time to think past the focus of scrubbing, rinsing and ensuring maximum water goes into the bucket.

You must be truly exceptional.

have you ever had a shower in under two minutes and washed your whole body?

Yes. My first thought was whether there may be a "best practice" way of showering efficiently and which professions may have suggestions on that (either jobs that are very time-constrained or jobs that are tight on resources?) and whether there were more effective ways of catching the water than a bucket (maybe some elaborate tarp placement? probably not feasible. the ultimate tarp placement would be one just around the body like one of the shields in star trek or star wars. maybe one of those bubble soccer balls upside down filled with water and one showerer? rolling down a hill in a plastic hamster ball full of water would be fun. also terrifying and basically dynamic waterboarding, but fun) and that was when the two minutes ended.

My city has more water than we can ever use, so I'm going to continue having shower thoughts, tyvm.

I wish I had that.

Come live in San Francisco!

"Oh no, California is wracked by drought! I mean except San Francisco..."

"Oh no, giant heat wave is pummeling the West Coast, except San Francisco which is still 65 degrees..."

"Oh no, giant wildfires are threatening everywhere except San Francisco which is surrounded by water on 3 sides..."

"Oh no, housing is becoming unaffordable everywhere, except San Francisco! ...because it was already unaffordable in SF...oops..."

I'm blessed in this regard by living in the rainiest city in Europe. It has it's downsides, but hey... free water.

My water comes from a hole in the backyard and it's free.

In my city the water comes from underground too. The problem arises when there is no rain and cleared land produces more runoff than absorbtion.

Coupled with heavy use by people ground water levels are reduced. This not only affects us but trees and plants that rely on these water levels will die off.

However, as the other commenter mentioned, normal citizen use and its affect on this is negligible. It's when you have industrial water extraction that is the real problem.

I did the math for Socal the last major drought, and normal people using water was like 2-5% of the water usage. And that includes lawns and stuff. Farming was the vast majority of water usage.

We just had our dishwasher connected to our rainwater tank so maybe I could justify a few minutes for c/showerthoughts now.

Yeah that's like saying the gas in your car comes from a hole in the ground.

Resource extraction is never free.

It would cost around $0.0025 to pump enough water for a shower. It's not free but it's a negligible cost.

The cost is that you deplete the aquifer. Generally speaking, water pumped out of the ground doesn't replenish (except on geologic time scales). That's what I meant by the fossil fuel comparison. It's not like taking water from a stream or a lake replenished by snowmelt. Once that aquifer is dry, it's dry, and the land becomes dead.

Hopefully some of my pee from the septic tank makes it over to my well then.

My city is nestled between a rain forrest and lots of natural springs. If we put our water through the normal cleaning process it would come out dirtier then it went it. We also have a few damned lakes we are having to release water from because we got so much damned rain this past winter.

We have a flat rate we pay for water, sewage, recycling, and garbage pickup and are only charged more if we use a certain amount of water. Mostly just people who water their yard or have a personal pool have to pay the higher fee.

You might want to consider a priest for the damned lakes (which were presumably corrupted by the damned rain?)

Quick, call Rev. Gabriele Amorth so I can enjoy my damned blessed showers again!

Depends on the definition of "wasting"

There's always a way to spend less water, even less than you currently do.

But normally spending more water translates to comfort, as well as better washing.

It's how dishwashers work: more cycles = more rinsing, then later rinse it all off.

You could do a quick pre-wash, then a long cycling of water, and lastly a rinse with clean water.

I still have trauma from growing up during a drought. Technically I still live in a dry climate but it isn't as bad now.

Take care

I feel for those in arid climates that can wait literally years for rain. Luckily here where we normally get 9 months of rain we are still looking at about 3-4 do there will be no worries about collecting rain water to survive.

One way to avoid wasting water is to turn off the water while scrubbing. Only use it to rince yourself before putting on soap or to get rid of soap!

Water isn't that expensive right? Heating the water is what makes it expensive.

It is very expensive in dry places with less water. Where I live there it is a tiered system where the more water you use the more expensive it becomes. Right now we aren't in a drought so the tiers are quite large but when it starts becoming dry then the tier shrinks and water prices go up. They are put laws in place that only allow you to water your lawn during specific times. The city also runs programs to get people to plant native grasses that will do well with low amounts of water.

We have a solar water heater so the heating is next to free.

$55aud/month currently for the water we use.

Were getting one soon as well and adding an electric boiler to work with our solar panels.

Water is only â‚Ŧ1.13/1000L here so showering costs about 1 cent a minute water wise.

We have the electric booster and it's used most days throughout winter but we get pretty cold and cloudy here. We also have solar panels to supplement the power and that helps a lot.

Maybe true but water is essentially free around here apartment doesn't charge we have plenty of water. 30 min showers are minimum for me

30mins!? Surely you are much faster being bald and all.

I do the I don't want to shower then when i am in I never want to leave.

Not going for speed but love the rain pouring over me and feeling warm without being sweaty and uncomfortable.