Excessive water consumption bad for environment
Mokey41
Posts: 5,769 Member
Just doing some figuring here and for all those who drink a lot water and say they pee every 30 minutes. That's, at a minimum, 24 trips a day to the washroom. Now the average toilet requires 3.5 gallons of water to flush so those 24 trips are requiring 84 gallons of water a day to be flushed. So you consume a gallon of water and use 84 to get rid of it. Total waste of resources both in providing the fresh water and then cleaning the waste water afterward. Seems kind of silly especially since there's no proof that drinking large amounts of water does anything except create a lot of pee!
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Replies
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You forgot to calculate the water used to wash one's hands.
My kids will tell you how much they save the environment by skipping both flushing and washing.0 -
If its yellow, let it mellow.0
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I might add that lots of people are drinking that water out of disposable plastic bottles. Most of the water consumption hype was started by the bottling companies. Of course, when I was young, people weren't sucking on bottles all the day long. People drank liquid with their meals, got an occasional drink at a water fountain and did just fine.0
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I work in water treatment for a living.
Fun facts you may not know about water treatment plants:
The water coming is screened through a filtering system, solids go through a process called dewatering. It's gross, just leave it at that.
The water, non chunky, if you will, goes through aeration, then through a clarification process. The aeration process must have oxygen and bacteria, good bacteria, that can't live without fresh deposits being made to the plant. This is the food for the bacteria. They like the higher pH and the things we leave behind in the water.
These good bacteria thrive in and eat the things we put into the water. The aeration basin process adds in oxygen to the water and drops the pH to environmentally friendly levels. It raises the D.O. Or dissolved oxygen level from near zero to great levels that fish and plants love when it gets done.
Once this goes through all 6 rings of the basin it goes to the clarifiers, the clarifiers settle any solids out of the water either through gravity or chemical polymers. The sludge left over goes through more aeration, and Ultraviolet decontamination, a lot of the sludge is good bacteria that have died off, this then goes to lagoons to dry out and eventually be sold for crop fertilization.
This good water that is left leaves the clarifier and goes through either a chlorination process or an ultraviolet process depending on the millions of gallons a day the plant is designed to treat. If it is chlorinated to kill the rest of the bad stuff the good bacteria did not eat, it has an additional step of being declorinated.
Then it goes out to the discharge stream or river.
Now here's the fun fact: 7 days a week tests are performed daily on the discharge or Effluent water and on the incoming water or Influent. This water is tested for EPA acceptable levels of Solids, volatile solids, alkalinity, D.O. levels, pH levels, Fecal E. Coliform levels, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Settleable rates, and a whole slew of others.
If a treatment plant is operating too far below the designed capacity this is bad, very very bad. Think low water pressure in your shower bad. The water stagnates and becomes very hard to treat and the happy little good bacteria starve to death. This can cause the water to not be treatable, which then must still go somewhere.
So the more you pee, the happier the bacteria known as Cernio Daphnia is. The Daphnes are your friend, they demand you drink and pee.
Water that goes through your pipes is even easier to treat and get to you than you may think, so drink all you want, and flush regularly.
Oh and the manual for water treatment suggests cleaning your bathroom per week by the same amount of people that live in your house for good health. It is reccommended to use 10mL of bleach per 3 Liters of water to clean with.
Thanks for your time, this message brought to you by a class 3 water treatment operator and Lab tech.0 -
Yeah, doesn't really work for me as a reason to over use water. The energy used for all the cleaning and treating doesn't really make sense.0
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I agree with the saying "if it's yellow, let it mellow." I'm also a lil bit of an environmentalist, so i don't care if you think this is gross
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I work in water treatment for a living.
Fun facts you may not know about water treatment plants:
The water coming is screened through a filtering system, solids go through a process called dewatering. It's gross, just leave it at that.
The water, non chunky, if you will, goes through aeration, then through a clarification process. The aeration process must have oxygen and bacteria, good bacteria, that can't live without fresh deposits being made to the plant. This is the food for the bacteria. They like the higher pH and the things we leave behind in the water.
These good bacteria thrive in and eat the things we put into the water. The aeration basin process adds in oxygen to the water and drops the pH to environmentally friendly levels. It raises the D.O. Or dissolved oxygen level from near zero to great levels that fish and plants love when it gets done.
Once this goes through all 6 rings of the basin it goes to the clarifiers, the clarifiers settle any solids out of the water either through gravity or chemical polymers. The sludge left over goes through more aeration, and Ultraviolet decontamination, a lot of the sludge is good bacteria that have died off, this then goes to lagoons to dry out and eventually be sold for crop fertilization.
This good water that is left leaves the clarifier and goes through either a chlorination process or an ultraviolet process depending on the millions of gallons a day the plant is designed to treat. If it is chlorinated to kill the rest of the bad stuff the good bacteria did not eat, it has an additional step of being declorinated.
Then it goes out to the discharge stream or river.
Now here's the fun fact: 7 days a week tests are performed daily on the discharge or Effluent water and on the incoming water or Influent. This water is tested for EPA acceptable levels of Solids, volatile solids, alkalinity, D.O. levels, pH levels, Fecal E. Coliform levels, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Settleable rates, and a whole slew of others.
If a treatment plant is operating too far below the designed capacity this is bad, very very bad. Think low water pressure in your shower bad. The water stagnates and becomes very hard to treat and the happy little good bacteria starve to death. This can cause the water to not be treatable, which then must still go somewhere.
So the more you pee, the happier the bacteria known as Cernio Daphnia is. The Daphnes are your friend, they demand you drink and pee.
Water that goes through your pipes is even easier to treat and get to you than you may think, so drink all you want, and flush regularly.
Oh and the manual for water treatment suggests cleaning your bathroom per week by the same amount of people that live in your house for good health. It is reccommended to use 10mL of bleach per 3 Liters of water to clean with.
Thanks for your time, this message brought to you by a class 3 water treatment operator and Lab tech.
im not sure if i want to categorize that as TMI or good info..ill go 50/50... very imformative tho..ty 0 -
There are over 30 very bad diseases that can happen if wastewater is left to hang around and ferment in a toilet that is unflushed.0
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Thanks for that! I know someone else in water treatment that has said basically the same thing when I was worried about all the water useage years ago.
I work in water treatment for a living.
Fun facts you may not know about water treatment plants:
The water coming is screened through a filtering system, solids go through a process called dewatering. It's gross, just leave it at that.
The water, non chunky, if you will, goes through aeration, then through a clarification process. The aeration process must have oxygen and bacteria, good bacteria, that can't live without fresh deposits being made to the plant. This is the food for the bacteria. They like the higher pH and the things we leave behind in the water.
These good bacteria thrive in and eat the things we put into the water. The aeration basin process adds in oxygen to the water and drops the pH to environmentally friendly levels. It raises the D.O. Or dissolved oxygen level from near zero to great levels that fish and plants love when it gets done.
Once this goes through all 6 rings of the basin it goes to the clarifiers, the clarifiers settle any solids out of the water either through gravity or chemical polymers. The sludge left over goes through more aeration, and Ultraviolet decontamination, a lot of the sludge is good bacteria that have died off, this then goes to lagoons to dry out and eventually be sold for crop fertilization.
This good water that is left leaves the clarifier and goes through either a chlorination process or an ultraviolet process depending on the millions of gallons a day the plant is designed to treat. If it is chlorinated to kill the rest of the bad stuff the good bacteria did not eat, it has an additional step of being declorinated.
Then it goes out to the discharge stream or river.
Now here's the fun fact: 7 days a week tests are performed daily on the discharge or Effluent water and on the incoming water or Influent. This water is tested for EPA acceptable levels of Solids, volatile solids, alkalinity, D.O. levels, pH levels, Fecal E. Coliform levels, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Settleable rates, and a whole slew of others.
If a treatment plant is operating too far below the designed capacity this is bad, very very bad. Think low water pressure in your shower bad. The water stagnates and becomes very hard to treat and the happy little good bacteria starve to death. This can cause the water to not be treatable, which then must still go somewhere.
So the more you pee, the happier the bacteria known as Cernio Daphnia is. The Daphnes are your friend, they demand you drink and pee.
Water that goes through your pipes is even easier to treat and get to you than you may think, so drink all you want, and flush regularly.
Oh and the manual for water treatment suggests cleaning your bathroom per week by the same amount of people that live in your house for good health. It is reccommended to use 10mL of bleach per 3 Liters of water to clean with.
Thanks for your time, this message brought to you by a class 3 water treatment operator and Lab tech.0 -
If its yellow, let it mellow.
Yep - this. We have a dual flush toilet, so half flush for wee, full flush for solids. It uses a ridiculously small amount of water to flush, not like the old toilets.0 -
I have a huge clay pot with a filter in it, I live in the tropics and man you have to drink a lot here, minimin 2 ltrs I do about 3- 4 easy and pee about every few hours I sweat it out. My hubby doesnt drink the h20 like me and he got kidney stones (33 yrs) Drs advice drink 2 ltrs h20. Yes and the processing isnt pleasant but neither is the slaughter of animals, clothing production with sweat shops etc. Btw I have a filter because we have giardia here in the tap water sometimes ecoli ! shock horror thats the tropics, but I know if I dont drink plenty I get the worst headaches. Thanks for info though nice debate xx
oh yes agree with the lady above have split system flush and do the mellow yellow thing, actually my pee so diluted that when I was pregnant it didnt show on urinalysis.0 -
*puke* loll !!!!0
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I have seen people on this site who swear by forcing down 20+ cups (that's 160+ ounces) of water a day... and they aren't even the ones who work out aggressively.
Unlike with some people who think hydration is about forcing down copious amounts of water until it's practically coming back up, I drink when I'm thirsty. I didn't always. I used to hate drinking water as a teenager; it was so boring to me. My consumption now usually hits the 8-10 cup mark per day, but sometimes is as low as 5 cups. On workout days, I hit somewhere between 12-16 cups.
Once you get used to drinking water again and recognizing the signs of genuine thirst, you should just drink it instinctively as needed. Other mammals seem to know when their bodies crave water, why do we have to make it so complicated for ourselves?0 -
I live in Texas on a farm. It has been known to be 120 in the field out in full sun. The recommendation for drinking then is one ounce of water per pound of body weight per day. You should take all your electrolytes during that time too. I've noticed when it's that hot that I don't even have to go to the bathroom any more often even if I do drink the recommended amount.I have seen people on this site who swear by forcing down 20+ cups (that's 160+ ounces) of water a day... and they aren't even the ones who work out aggressively.
Unlike with some people who think hydration is about forcing down copious amounts of water until it's practically coming back up, I drink when I'm thirsty. I didn't always. I used to hate drinking water as a teenager; it was so boring to me. My consumption now usually hits the 8-10 cup mark per day, but sometimes is as low as 5 cups. On workout days, I hit somewhere between 12-16 cups.
Once you get used to drinking water again and recognizing the signs of genuine thirst, you should just drink it instinctively as needed. Other mammals seem to know when their bodies crave water, why do we have to make it so complicated for ourselves?0 -
I can't understand why anyone would need to force themselves to drink water. I drink water because I am thirsty. I'm not going to stop drinking water when I'm thirsty no matter what anyone says. As a result I drink less on some days and a lot more on other days. I don't actually keep track. And when I am out and about I usually drink less. Sort of silly to even need to say any of this.0
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I can't understand why anyone would need to force themselves to drink water.
Back when I didn't ever drink water EVER, I'd have to force it down if there was no other beverage option. And sometimes all I would drink was maybe a glass of juice in the morning and a glass of diet coke at night, for the whole day. I didn't pay attention to feeling thirsty so I wouldn't drink when I probably needed it, and mistook thirst for hunger. I had to force myself at first to drink water when I decided to get healthier, and now I freak out if I'm out and about somewhere without my trusty Camelback water bottle. Funny how things change0 -
^Oh, I see. :drinker: (that's water)0
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Someone who has to pee every 30 minutes has a problem. The average adult pees anywhere from 5 - 7 times a day (every 2 - 4 hrs) and less at night. Women a little more; men a little less....AND WE GET TO DO IT STANDING UP!0
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Everyone that I've known to happily let the urine sit in the toilet for hours, has a yellowed, stinky toilet. I have issues about this - I really must flush every time, I feel guilty about the wastage of water, but it's worse to just leave it.
My brother is not a greenie, not at all, but he rarely flushes. Every rental he's ever lived in has ended up with a toilet that is disgusting. I wouldn't be surprised if they replace them after he leaves. How on earth could toilets get like that if you just flush them after every use?0 -
I drink LARGE amounts of water everyday but not because I am trying to be super healthy. I drink alot of water simply because I LOVE the taste of water, nothing can quench my thirst like water can. I rarely ever drink anything else.(but i have been trying to add in some green tea for health reasons) I will go ahead and apologize to the environment now because I'm not gonna stop drinking large amounts of water or stop flushing my toilet after I pee for the twelfth time today lol0
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You forgot to calculate the water used to wash one's hands.
My kids will tell you how much they save the environment by skipping both flushing and washing.
haha made me laugh!0 -
Meh, who cares? The planet will survive long after we're gone. ~pours water in toilet AND flushes~. Too much effort to drink it.0
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I drink LARGE amounts of water everyday but not because I am trying to be super healthy. I drink alot of water simply because I LOVE the taste of water, nothing can quench my thirst like water can. I rarely ever drink anything else.(but i have been trying to add in some green tea for health reasons) I will go ahead and apologize to the environment now because I'm not gonna stop drinking large amounts of water or stop flushing my toilet after I pee for the twelfth time today lol
QFT. I drink whenever I'm thirsty, and end up with totals between 12-16 the vast majority of the time. I never understand the people who say they can't stand water. I don't have to go more often than every hour or two either, but drinking more, and eliminating whenever possible are both recommended for me as I'm prone to kidney stones and UTIs.0 -
Agree with both above that work in the water/wastewater industry.
Water is a renewable resource. The process of treating it does not use that much power, it is primarily a natural process we help speed along. Treatment plants work best with a constant or near constant flow. Letting it sit without flushing is if anything worse; let the pipes start treating it right away.
The public "wasting" water within a residence is a whole lot of ado about nothing. Trying to use less water around the house does virtually nothing for the environment.
Where "wasting" water really matters is watering/irrigation, especially in drought areas. Residential use in the house is almost perfectly volume neutral; what comes in goes out.0 -
I drink around 2 gallons a day. I might pee a dozen times during the day at most. I learned in the military that any more than a light shade of yellow means you're dehydrated. We were made to drink LOTS of water, and I like how I feel when I'm saturated with water. I also drink it for appetite suppression. A lot of times when I want a snack, I drink 8-16 oz water and the craving goes away. While there's nothing that says "you must drink X cups a day blah blah" there's nothing that says "drinking X cups a day is bad for you" so I'll keep filling up my ice mountain gallon twice a day.
Who defined "excessive water consumption" btw, and where can I read about that study?0 -
I live in Texas on a farm. It has been known to be 120 in the field out in full sun. The recommendation for drinking then is one ounce of water per pound of body weight per day. You should take all your electrolytes during that time too. I've noticed when it's that hot that I don't even have to go to the bathroom any more often even if I do drink the recommended amount.I have seen people on this site who swear by forcing down 20+ cups (that's 160+ ounces) of water a day... and they aren't even the ones who work out aggressively.
Unlike with some people who think hydration is about forcing down copious amounts of water until it's practically coming back up, I drink when I'm thirsty. I didn't always. I used to hate drinking water as a teenager; it was so boring to me. My consumption now usually hits the 8-10 cup mark per day, but sometimes is as low as 5 cups. On workout days, I hit somewhere between 12-16 cups.
Once you get used to drinking water again and recognizing the signs of genuine thirst, you should just drink it instinctively as needed. Other mammals seem to know when their bodies crave water, why do we have to make it so complicated for ourselves?
In extreme heat, it makes sense. Your body is sweating like you would if you were working out intensely. I'm not referring to such cases, though; I'm referring to people who chug obscene amounts of water, ignoring their natural thirst, on a daily basis, during pretty unremarkable weather... often as part of a weight loss plan (and, it would seem, something they read or heard supposedly came from the mouth of Dr Oz).0 -
Meh, who cares? The planet will survive long after we're gone. ~pours water in toilet AND flushes~. Too much effort to drink it.
Too damn funny.0 -
I drink LARGE amounts of water everyday but not because I am trying to be super healthy. I drink alot of water simply because I LOVE the taste of water, nothing can quench my thirst like water can. I rarely ever drink anything else.(but i have been trying to add in some green tea for health reasons) I will go ahead and apologize to the environment now because I'm not gonna stop drinking large amounts of water or stop flushing my toilet after I pee for the twelfth time today lol
QFT. I drink whenever I'm thirsty, and end up with totals between 12-16 the vast majority of the time. I never understand the people who say they can't stand water. I don't have to go more often than every hour or two either, but drinking more, and eliminating whenever possible are both recommended for me as I'm prone to kidney stones and UTIs.
My urologist recommends that daily I drink 3 glasses of lemonade (morning, noon, night) to prevent the formation of kidney stones. He said it wont dissolve them, only prevent.
As I dont like sugary drinks, I buy a bottle of lemon juice (it's the citrate) and add just a little with each glass of water. Be careful of your teeth enamel.0 -
I read your first sentence and stopped there, because I do NOT want to know anything else......lolI work in water treatment for a living.
Fun facts you may not know about water treatment plants:
The water coming is screened through a filtering system, solids go through a process called dewatering. It's gross, just leave it at that.
The water, non chunky, if you will, goes through aeration, then through a clarification process. The aeration process must have oxygen and bacteria, good bacteria, that can't live without fresh deposits being made to the plant. This is the food for the bacteria. They like the higher pH and the things we leave behind in the water.
These good bacteria thrive in and eat the things we put into the water. The aeration basin process adds in oxygen to the water and drops the pH to environmentally friendly levels. It raises the D.O. Or dissolved oxygen level from near zero to great levels that fish and plants love when it gets done.
Once this goes through all 6 rings of the basin it goes to the clarifiers, the clarifiers settle any solids out of the water either through gravity or chemical polymers. The sludge left over goes through more aeration, and Ultraviolet decontamination, a lot of the sludge is good bacteria that have died off, this then goes to lagoons to dry out and eventually be sold for crop fertilization.
This good water that is left leaves the clarifier and goes through either a chlorination process or an ultraviolet process depending on the millions of gallons a day the plant is designed to treat. If it is chlorinated to kill the rest of the bad stuff the good bacteria did not eat, it has an additional step of being declorinated.
Then it goes out to the discharge stream or river.
Now here's the fun fact: 7 days a week tests are performed daily on the discharge or Effluent water and on the incoming water or Influent. This water is tested for EPA acceptable levels of Solids, volatile solids, alkalinity, D.O. levels, pH levels, Fecal E. Coliform levels, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Settleable rates, and a whole slew of others.
If a treatment plant is operating too far below the designed capacity this is bad, very very bad. Think low water pressure in your shower bad. The water stagnates and becomes very hard to treat and the happy little good bacteria starve to death. This can cause the water to not be treatable, which then must still go somewhere.
So the more you pee, the happier the bacteria known as Cernio Daphnia is. The Daphnes are your friend, they demand you drink and pee.
Water that goes through your pipes is even easier to treat and get to you than you may think, so drink all you want, and flush regularly.
Oh and the manual for water treatment suggests cleaning your bathroom per week by the same amount of people that live in your house for good health. It is reccommended to use 10mL of bleach per 3 Liters of water to clean with.
Thanks for your time, this message brought to you by a class 3 water treatment operator and Lab tech.0
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