Girl saves water

Spring 2013, Issue 1

Written by: Lisa Biel

Americans now use 127% more water than they did in 1950. And about 95 percent of the water that enters their homes goes down the drain.

Young Woman Decided to Save Water and help the earth

You often see signs or posters around telling you to Save the Earth, or Conserve Water. But why are these people trying so hard to make you save water? Why is it so important to us? Well, we all know that man needs water to live. This should really be enough reason to save water, but, there are many other reasons as well. One reason is that our planet needs water as well. For the vegetation to flourish, it needs water that is can use to grow, and to reproduce. If the plants dont get water, the herbivores dont get any food, and if the herbivores dont get food, they start dying. When this happens, the carnivores also start being hungry, as there is no meat for them to hunt. If plants and animals die, we, as humans, dont have any food left either. Water is a very limited recourse, with only about 2% of the Earths water being fresh water, and a mere 1% actually being available to us. We cannot keep wasting what little water we actually have available, because, someday, there will be none left for us to waste.

Behind the Article

The young woman (picture to the right) who is so keep on saving water was originally introduced to the concept through school. Her teacher had the class do multiple projects on saving water, and eventually the young woman took saving water into her own hands.

Deciding to NOT Clean the Cars

After the young woman came home with the firm mindset to save water, the only thing felt to do was to find out how. She quickly figured out that the main thing the water was being used for was washing the cars. It takes about 0.2 m3 of water to wash a car. The young woman's family has 3 cars, and they one was washed every day. So, that was 0.2 m3 of water every day, on just washing cars, in a month, this adds up to 6 m3 on just washing cars every month. The young womans family quickly cut down, and not uses only about 3 m3 per month on washing cars. It is not the minimal amount, but we are still working on decreasing the water usage on only cars, says the young woman.

What did She do to get to this point?

The young woman has done many things herself to decrease the water use in her family. For example, turning off the tap when she brushed her teeth, or taking shorter showers, and turning off the water when she is not rinsing. She has also implemented other things as household rules so that the family will no longer waste to much water. The cars are being washed only when needed, clothes are only being washed if it is a full machine, and the same with the dishwasher. The young woman has started to educate her whole family, near and distant, in the importance of saving water. Her father says, Of course we are also saving money, but the real effect is that we feel proud and have started doing something for the environment. The effect that saving water had on the family was huge. They felt inspired to do more for the Earth, and got more involved, not only as a family, but also in their community. The whole family agrees that deciding to save water is one of the best choices they have made in a long time.

Washing Clothes and Dishes

The family has also decided to make sure their washing is reduced. They have started to reuse towels, rather than throwing them in the wash the first time they use them, and to make sure that every clothes wash is a full one. They also started to make sure that every dish wash is a full machine, as they often used to have half full. Even just reusing towels and clothes has made the washing decrease by nearly half, says their maid.

The Future
The young woman is now thinking about what she will try to accomplish in the future. The end goal, the young woman said, is to get my families combined water usage down to 10 m3/month. This is a difficult goal to achieve, as this means about 2.5 m3/month per

person, but I am determined to get there. Not only has she set up this highly ambitious goal, but she is also determined to see what she can do to get there, and how long it will take for her family to get

Evaluation
there. She has made a graph and gotten math work (bellow) to prove how long it will take her to get there.
m3 of Water Used Over Months As you can see in the graph to the left, the young womans first record of water consumption was as far back as August. She has had a steady number in the low twenties since she started saving water, with the exception of October. This was due to a water leakage in the house water tank. She wanted to find out how long it would take her to get to her end goal of 10 m3/month if she continued to reduce every month, and so she made an equation (see below). As you can see, she will achieve this goal in May if she follows her trend line. But, this trend line is not completely accurate. Also, after November, her data does not really change much, and so it is not sure that her water consumption will be at 10m3 in May.

MATH
The young woman approximated the water consumption with a straight trend line (red line in graph). A straight line has an equation in the form of y = kx + m, or y = slope * x + y-intercept To find the slope of the line she took two points on the line. She used the coordinates (0,35) and (9,10), which is the trended consumption for August and May. The formula for finding slope is k = (y2 y1) / (x2 x1) For the points used she got the slope k = (10-35) / (9-0) = -25 / 9 = -2.77 Then she knew that the slope was -2.77. Next, she found the y-intercept by using one of the points she used to calculate the slope, and using her k from above. She used the coordinate (9,10). y = -2.77x + m 10 = -2.77 * 9 + m 10 = -25 + m m = 10 + 25 m = 35 Therefore, she got that the y-intercept was 35. This means that the approximation for the water consumption trend is: y = -2.77x + 35 Where y is the number of cubic meters per month, and x is the number of months since August.

Monthly Consumption
August (0) September (1) October (2) November (3) December (4) January (5) February (6) March (7) 47 m3 23 m3 127 m3 22 m3 20 m3 23 m3 20 m3 18 m3

ARTICLE BY LISA BIEL