I'm cleaning out my closet, so to speak, going through folders full of old, unread e-mails and flipping through piles of magazines in an attempt to clean house. Clean desk, actually. Most of it is dreck, not worthy of having been read in the first place. But I'm unearthing a few interesting tidbits as I go.
For instance, the June/July issue of Organic Gardening (OK, it's June/July 2007, but the information is still relevant) included a report on water conservation. Here are some statistics I picked up:
1. 80 to 100 Gallons: The amount of water used each day by the average American.
2. 227%: Increase in public water use in the United States from 1950 to 2000.
3. 89%: Population growth during that period.
4. 1%: Amount of the world’s water that is fresh water available for drinking and watering plants.
5. 40%: Percentage of fresh water used that is applied outdoors during the summer.
No. 4 had me doing a double take. Only 1% of all the water in the world is available for drinking and watering plants? The other 99% is unusable? How crazy is that? And moving on to No. 5, it follows that we use 40% of that 1% outdoors during summer? I love my plants as much as the next guy. Wait a minute -- I probably love my plants more than the next guy, but still, using 40% of the only usable 1% of water on outdoor plants seems a little wasteful, no? Though those figures surely include water used on farms, there's no reason I can't be a little frugal in my backyard.
I have an abundance of half-filled water bottles all over the house. And whenever I ask whose water it is, nobody seems to know. Instead of dumping the water down the drain, I've been emptying it into my planters and window boxes.
I suppose we could take this a step further and save cooking water for the garden. Neither water nor nutrients would go to waste. Plus, water used to boil eggs is full of calcium and can help prevent blossom end rot on tomato plants.
If you have any other creative uses for old water, or any ideas for conserving it, let me know.
That's all for now. But I might be back if I have time to tackle another pile.
