Water: how are we using it?

Ted McGlaukin also spoke of the water process and how right now we are wasting water in North America while people in underdeveloped countries haven’t even seen clean water in their lives. To us seeing how the rest of the world lives is an incredibly saddening sight and yet most of us do not get up off our seats to do anything. We continue to sit in awkward silence and stare in disbelief, unable to comprehend just how these people remain; how can they continue to function? They are able to function because unlike the developed worlds people, the underdeveloped worlds people do not know any different, they believe that their lives is how people were meant to live; in anguish and despair.
A very simple way to help these people is by conserving the fresh water on the earth’s surface. We would be able to do this in relatively simple ways, which is what McGlaukin was speaking of. The way our toilets have worked in the past is that for every flush 16 gallons is of water – fresh water at that – is wasted. McGlaukin suggests that not only do we convert all of our toilets to the 1 gallon flush or the dual flush system but that we change the way we use all of the water within our homes and work places. Why are we using drinking water to flush our toilets? That is a very interesting question. Why is it that we use our drinking water to flush our toilets? Apparently the reason is because in North America, any water that a child is able to touch has to be clean in order to prevent disease. There are other ways your may be able to go about using the water before it is thrown into the sewers. McGlaukin believes that you should be able to use water at least three times over before it is thrown into the sewer system. He suggests one way we do this is after we run our sink water and wash our hands; this water is filtered and then reused as our shower water. The grey water from the shower could be able to be filtered and then used as our toilet water. Nobody is drinking out of the toilet; children aren’t playing in the toilet, so why wouldn’t it be able to be grey water? Another way he suggests you may conserve water and at the same time reduce the run off of your property into the sewer system is by creating a water circuit in your back yard. Start the circuit by having the water run off from your roof fall into a small pond, which incorporates fish and other small pond creatures. This water will also be able to move from the pond into a marsh-like area, which would incorporate certain plants that remove the bad chemicals from the water. This water is then sent to your garden to water your vegetables and only after the water is used for all of these things is it able to move to the sewer system and by that time the water is almost drinking water again because it has been filtered by the different natural processes.

~Trevor