Finding My Water Usage

Finding My Water Usage

 This action project for H2O, (a STEAM course) was about finding how much water I use, and how my personal data compares to the rest of the world.

I began by figuring out how much water I use per day using close observation. I was able to figure out I use somewhere around 78 gallons per day. My initial guess for how much water I use was 50 gallons, so I use a lot more than I expected. I was kind of sad to realize that because I had figure out how long it would take me to get to my water for the day if I had to go to my nearest water source and back. I decided I would hold two gallons and it would take me about 6.5 hours to get my water every day. I'm sure I could do it faster if I have a trashcan of water and I use the wheels on the bottom then I can roll larger amounts of water  from my nearest water source.

After figuring out how long it would take me to get my water per day, I chose 4 categories of water usage and I figured out individually how much water I use for each one. The categories I chose were showering, brushing my teeth, washing my hands, and my toilet. All of the water I use (per day) together is 69 gallons. Below I wrote my collected Data

• Showering for me uses 50 gallon and was the largest percentage and it was 74.1% of my graph.
• Using the toilet used 12 gallons and was 15.3% of my graph.
• Brushing my teeth used 2 gallons and was the smallest percentage and was  2.5%  of my graph.
• Washing my hands used 5 gallons and was at 6.1%  of my graph.

I compared my data with the averages of water in the UK. Taking a bath there uses about 80 liters, a five minute shower is 45 liters, a full load in the washing machine can take up to 100 liters, and it can take up to 20 liters to run a dishwasher.

Citations;

Felicity Lawrence.”Revealed: the massive scale of UK's water consumption.” 19 August 2008.http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/aug/20/water.food1

"How Much Water do You Use".14 Sept. 2015.http://www.cambridge-water.co.uk/customers/how-much-water-do-you-use.