Saving Water is a Bit Ridiculous Actually
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (90118)
United States
November 10, 2023 8:30am CST
Water. It's an amazing thing. It has been on the planet since the beginning of time practically. And there is as much water on the planet as there was from the beginning. Because, you see, it is self contained. Sure, it moves around a bit. It evaporates, for example, goes into the atmosphere and falls as rain.
Then into the acquifers it goes, which goes right back to the seas, lakes and river systems.
Sure, some of it freezes and unfreezes. But the amount of water we have on the planet remains constant overall. It doesn't disappear.
But there are people who will try to tell you we need to save it. Adjust the flush, install low volume shower heads and so on and so forth. It doesn't save anything because...well, water is constant.
Yeah, we have droughts in certain places. Sure. But the water just moves somewhere else. It's not ever gone.
When we run the faucet, flush the toilet, take a shower or bath or even drink it. Most of it returns back to where it came from. Down the drain and into a water treatment facility and back to the source.
13 people like this
15 responses
@LadyDuck (471337)
• Switzerland
11 Nov 23
@porwest - There are some countries with a serious water problem, but no matter how much they can try to save water, they will never have enough water there.
I remember the "save the whales" campaign. Humans always need something to worry about.
1 person likes this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
10 Nov 23
Like I said, water is constant. We have no more or no less than we had from the beginning. But people like to have something to worry about I guess. It is what it is. lol
I remember back when I was a kid "Save the whales" was a huge campaign slogan. What a bunch of idiots. lol
1 person likes this
@1creekgirl (41392)
• United States
10 Nov 23
Jim, you are very informed. Thanks for the info.
2 people like this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
10 Nov 23
I try. I usually fail. But I try. There are so many ridiculous things people believe sometimes and I try to at least offer a different perspective. I remember that campaign when I was a kid, "Save the whales." I mean, did anyone actually think the seas were drying up because we flushed our toilets two times too many?
I mean, come on, man. You'd THINK with some of the stuff people buy into that oceanfront property realtors would be selling many more properties in Arizona for Heaven's sake!
"Hey, wait a minute, where's the ocean?"
"Oh, I must have forgot to tell you that you have a 900 mile long frontage."
"Oh yeah...makes sense. Thanks."
1 person likes this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
10 Nov 23
On that we can agree. The main point is that water is constant. So much so, that even in places where droughts are more common, it is not GONE from the area. It's simply HELD. I think back to a drought we had in Missouri in the 80s. In some places you could walk across the Mississippi. Eventually it all came back, and MANY times the areas become flooded.
That being said, some water does LEAVE an area. For example, I bottle a bottle of Dasani in Milwaukee and it gets sold in Illinois. The water leaves Milwaukee and goes to Illinois. But surely there are things that come from Illinois that will return some water to Milwaukee. It's a cycle.
2 people like this
@LindaOHio (178115)
• United States
11 Nov 23
Ah, if only it were so simple for everyone. The drought areas need to conserve water. Have a good weekend.
2 people like this
@cabuyogty (3018)
• Philippines
10 Nov 23
I'm trying to save water because here in my country the water bill is in high price. Good Day!
2 people like this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
10 Nov 23
Saving money is one thing. Saving water is entirely another. That being said, when it comes to MY water bill, the water is the cheapest part of it. Most of it is for sewer line maintenance and delivery line maitenance and water treatment and all that sort of thing.
2 people like this
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
10 Nov 23
Nice to hear some common sense. I've been talking about this for years but no one outside my family and friends thinks it's a valid point. My dad commented years ago that soon water will be the new oil, not for lack of it but for a manufactured shortage of it. He was pretty smart but he'd lived 90 years and had seen a lot of deception.
The only reason I save water is to save money. But I do make an effort not to waste it since I live in the desert, a totally self-serving motivation.
1 person likes this
@allknowing (136089)
• India
10 Nov 23
Unless it gets back to the reservoirs that water is not available for you.
1 person likes this
@allknowing (136089)
• India
11 Nov 23
@porwest But all of that cannot be used either. Water harvesting is done so that water does not get to the sea.
1 person likes this
@cttolledo (5454)
• Legaspi, Philippines
12 Nov 23
In my country, we are saving water consumption because water here is expensive.
1 person likes this
@RebeccasFarm (89831)
• Arvada, Colorado
11 Nov 23
Just another issue that is debatable.
1 person likes this
@RebeccasFarm (89831)
• Arvada, Colorado
14 Nov 23
@porwest But they will debate it no matter what..you know that.
1 person likes this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
14 Nov 23
@RebeccasFarm Of course. Because they are idiots.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (30352)
• United Kingdom
10 Nov 23
It's not ridiculous, but it is mis-named. Because what we really need to do is to keep enough water stored where it is accessible to us. Sure, when we've used it it returns to the river or sea and thence to the sky, but we can't drink the clouds very easily
1 person likes this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
10 Nov 23
I mean, if you tried to store water, do you know how much water that is? In any event, I think it is important to be conscientious of our water needs and not be wasteful even if it doesn't ultimately matter. As @NJChicaa pointed out, in some places during certain times, you are going to run into droughts and so during those times, being more conservative is smart. But ultimately, when it comes to water, I think you are right. "Waste" is the wrong word because it suggests it goes away. Of course, it does NOT go away and so we're not really wasting anything.
Balance is what we need. Don't just open the tap and go on a vacation for a week, but also don't force me to flush my toilet 6 times to get the poop to go down.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (44504)
• Staten Island, New York
10 Nov 23
What happens to the toilet water with poop in it that we flush? We may not need to save water but we should use less of it (meaning don't run the faucet when you don't need to) because otherwise that will drive up the water bill.
I hate it when hubby rinses the dishes in the sink and he blasts the water. You can effectively rinse dishes with less of a flow. Or he will stand there rubbing the dishes with a soapy sponge and have the water running at a pretty high flow. Why do that? If you are soaping the dishes there is no need to run the water at all.
1 person likes this
@lovebuglena (44504)
• Staten Island, New York
23 Sep
@porwest if you are paying for water, you definitely don’t want to have the faucet running for no reason as that’s throwing money down the drain.
1 person likes this
@porwest (90118)
• United States
22 Sep
Saving water to save money is one thing. Believing we are actually saving water is another. lol. The water that goes into our toilet comes from a lake or reservoir or river or whatever the source happens to be. It gets flushed, cleaned and processed, and returned right back to where it came from. lol
Even if you use the water, say, to boil rice, it gets absorbed into the rice, we eat it, we pee it and poop it, the water that was in the rice goes back to the source. Or at least goes SOMEWHERE. But the exact amount of water that was on the planet hundreds of millions of years ago is still here, being used and reused and recycled over and over and over again.
1 person likes this
@dgobucks226 (35574)
•
11 Nov 23
An interesting take on water. I think people in general frown upon those who deliberately waste things, water included. In your argument it's "perception vs reality." One for debate, but a point well taken!
1 person likes this
@dgobucks226 (35574)
•
13 Nov 23
@porwest Sometimes common sense is not so "common,"
1 person likes this
@TraveOnWorld (854)
• Georgia
11 Nov 23
I've travelled a bit around areas with seasonal water availability, some years a lot, other years not so much. But always enough and it is always there. I did live in a town which had water restrictions for many years and the council there charged penalties for over-use. I drove up to the reservoir one day and it was flooding. I had a devil of a time convincing people that there was enough water, that the water restrictions were not at all needed and that the council was making money off their ignorance. I was sworn at many times for pointing out this obvious truth. I've found that for many people the pain of admitting to ignorance is far greater than the joy of not being hoodwinked by a politician.
Access to clean drinking water is not the same thing as availability of water. I've travelled in places where children walk miles everyday to get water for household use (and they definitely do not flush it down a toilet). People in those countries use water better. I've also been in countries where piped water is probably cheap all things compared, but a lot of money is flushed down the toilet. There might be an economic need to save it, but that is a personal issue. A cynical money making need to imagine a shortage coming soon, is perhaps more the social issue, if one can actually call it a social issue to begin with.