Put a Plug in it Challenge Results

July's challenge was to put a plug in the bath whilst you shower to see how much less water you use in a shower compared to a bath. It only really applied to people like me who have a shower unit over their bathtub. So I was really surprised to see that it got a good response. 58 people took part in the poll and the results were as follows:

• I put the plug in the bath when I showered! 30 votes (51%)
• I don't want to put the plug in the bath when I shower! 7 votes (12%)
• I haven't got a shower over my bath! 21 votes (35%)

It's so easy to tell ourselves that it doesn't really make much of a difference what we do, whether we try to be "green" or not, whether we have a bath or a shower, so I liked this simple way of seeing directly just how much of a difference it does make. I'm not the only one; TopVeg commented:

I much prefer a bath - & have been telling myself for months that it really does not use much more water. So, I felt quite bad when I took up your challenge, put the plug in & had a shower. The water did not get above my ankles! A converted showerer..

Some commenters shared the inspiring ways they recycle their bath and shower water. Carol Hague keeps a bucket in the bathroom and uses bathwater to flush the loo. Linz uses a bucket to take it to the garden, and Wulf also uses it in the garden via a droughtplug. Yellow washes her whole family of four in a single bath (I think they take turns rather than all go in at the same time) and Amy likes to get in and out quickly. Rob isn't satisfied with taking just one green challenge, but he has done a whole bunch of them and wrote a roundup of the challenges he has taken in the last few months.

There will be a new challenge for August coming soon.

July Challenge

We're well into July now so this is just a quick challenge that won't even apply to everybody. But if, like me, you have a shower unit over your bath (rather than in a separate shower cubicle, or even no shower at all) then I challenge you to put the plug in next time you take a shower.

You'll end up standing in a few inches of water but never mind, I only want you to do it once. The reason is to see how much less water you use in a shower than in a bath. Unless you take very long showers, you won't use nearly as much water as if you filled the tub for a hot bath.

Most people know that showers use less water than baths. But I think it's really helpful to see with your own eyes just how much difference there is. Direct personal experience is a lot more likely to make you want to change your behaviour than any efficiency campaign or general good intentions.

Once you've finished taking your shower, consider what you're going to do with the water. Will you just pull out the plug and let it go down the drain? Or can you reuse some of it, perhaps to water plants? If it's still quite warm you could mix a little soap powder into it and drop some laundry in there. I wash my duvets in the bath once or twice a year because they're too big to go in the machine. It's better to reuse bath or shower water for a job like that than to fill up the bath just for a duvet. Or if you are clever at plumbing, could you somehow divert the water into your washing machine, or an irrigation system for your garden, or even your own reed bed?

But that's not the main focus of the challenge. The challenge is just to put the plug in and see how much water you save by taking a shower rather than a bath. Don't forget to vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar when you've done it.

Review: You Can Save The Planet

My daughter, Eleanor, has decided that she is an eco-princess after reading You Can Save The Planet by Jacqui Wines. It's a book for children that explains about energy saving, water conservation, pollution, reduce reuse recycle and so on. It focuses on things children can do, or encourage their parents to do.

For example, there is a checklist to see whether the house is energy efficient:

• I have taken a look and our loft is/is not insulated
• I tested each window in our house for drafts by holding a feather in front of it and seeing whether it fluttered. ___ windows had drafts.
• We have ___ lightbulbs in this house. ___ of them are low-energy bulbs.

... and so on. Eleanor has made a poster saying "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." and stuck it up in the loo. Lovely.

I had an ulterior motive in buying this book for the kids. Often they thwart my attempts to be green - they can't be bothered to turn lights off, they can't be bothered to separate the recycling, they'd rather take the car than walk or cycle places. When you've got an eco-mum, this is how you rebel, I suppose. But this book makes being green seem like subversive fun. The back of the book says "Your parents' generation have wrecked the planet. Now it's up to you to make them fix it again". It seems to be working, on Eleanor at least. If I want Tom to read it I'll have to slip it inside an Artemis Fowl cover.

Waterbutts

I love this - waterbutts in the shape of, well, butts. Because living green was much more fun when it was a slap in the face of the establishment, not just the latest middle class trend. Personally, I'd like one in the shape of the Manneken Pis.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Yesterday I visited my friend Guy in Telford. Guy is extremely handy and has made a water collection system for flushing his downstairs loo. It's not hooked up yet, but I got some snaps of the water butt on a five-foot-high stand, and the filter unit to keep out undesirables. What I don't yet understand is how he's going to arrange things so it flushes with mains water when the butt is empty, but I'm looking forward to going back when it's all up and running.

I also had a go on his new wood-turning lathe. Guy had already made beautiful magic wands for the kids out of scraps of cedar and mahogany reclaimed from old windows. He made me a bodhran beater while I watched, and I even had a go on the lathe myself. I made something that resembles a lumpen Venus of Willendorf but I am very proud of it nevertheless.

I've promised him some beeswax for wood finishing when I collect any.

Stormy Weather

After an amazingly hot and dry April (usually a cold and wet month here in England) we seem to be having a whole month's worth of rainfall in just a few days now it's early May. The newly-installed waterbutt is full to overflowing and the poor old chickens need wellies, their pen is so full of mud.

On the one hand the wet weather is much-needed. If the April conditions had continued we would have been facing a drought. But on the other hand the timing is poor. A nice wet April dampens the earth ready for sowing and planting crops in warmer, dryer May. But a dry April followed by a very wet May means we have to wait for dryer weather to get crops in the ground, losing valuable growing time and increasing the risk of seedlings dying indoors.

Water Butt

We installed a water butt a couple of weeks ago but we didn't have a drop of rain until yesterday. There is still only an inch or two in there. It certainly has been a strange month, so hot and dry compared to a typical cold wet English April.

Update: I've figured out why it only has an inch or two of water in it when there have been a few good downpours - the tap was left open. Doh!

Put A Brick In Your Loo Challenge Poll Results

The April challenge - Save Water, Put A Brick In Your Loo - results are in. I challenged you to install a water-displacement device in your toilet cistern to save 5 - 10,000 litres of water per year. Twenty-two of you responded to the poll.

I've gone green! I've put a brick in my loo! 32%

I was already green! I've got a hippo in my loo! 54.5%

I don't accept your argument! I deposit logs in my loo! 9%

I'm greener than thou! I recycle all my humanure! 4.5%

It's good to see most of you are already doing these basic things, like switching to low-energy lighbulbs and saving water in the toilet cistern. I can see I'm going to have to shift the challenges up a gear. Look out for the next challenge, coming soon.

Why Save Water

Amy asked "Why bother?" I understand what she means. Water costs nothing. You turn on a tap and it comes - clean, cold, pure, delicious. It never runs out. It's always there. So why save it?

In one sense, water is an infinitely renewable resource. It never runs out because it just cycles round and round. You drink it, but it isn't gone - sooner or later you'll pee it out, it will get processed and return to the rivers and seas. You spill it, it evaporates and goes back to the clouds, to rain down and return to the reservoirs. Your pipes leak? So what? It all goes back to the groundwater where it was pumped out of in the first place.

On the other hand, because it is a (more or less) closed cycle, we can't make any more of it. But the population is growing rapidly, and our use of water is going through the roof. One of these days you're going to turn the tap on - and nothing will come out.

If that isn't reason enough to save water, think of the resources needed to collect the water (how much energy does it take to build a dam?), to clean the water, to store it and to pump it to where it is needed. When you think of all the energy that has gone to produce each pint of tapwater, it seems much more important to conserve it.

Put it this way - it takes 9 bottles of Evian to flush your toilet just once. 30 bottles of Perrier to take a shower or 80 bottles to take a bath. It takes 20 of those big 5 litre bottles of Volvic to run a washing machine. If you actually bathed in mineral water, people would think you were crazy. But the water that comes out of the tap is just pure, just as as expensive to produce and just as precious as the stuff you pay for at the supermarket. Next time you flush the loo, imagine pouring nine bottles of Buxton spring water into the cistern before you could flush it. Wouldn't you put a brick or two in it, to save one of those bottles?

Save Water - Recycle a Brick

Last weekend we all went to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. It's a great place. The kids love it there and treat it as a big adventure playground. It is full of things to explore, climb on, touch, taste, smell and do. At the same time it teaches you how to live more sustainably, always in an entertaining and positive way. We never seem to have enough time to do and see everything we want to when we go there, and have to be turfed out by the staff at closing time.

We were looking out for things we can do to live more sustainably. One thing we'd love to do is get a composting toilet. Honestly, they've come a long way from the old "thunderbox" loos. They go in your normal indoors bathroom and look just like normal toilets until you try to flush them and find there isn't a flush. They cost a lot of money, though, and need professional installation. But when you bear in mind that a typical household toilet uses around 50,000 litres of water a year (that's about a third of total water usage) the environmental savings are immense.

If (like us) you don't want to install a composting toilet for whatever reason, you can still save water by using a displacement device in your cistern. This sounds complicated and expensive , but it can be as simple as putting an old brick in your cistern. It stops as much water entering the cistern when it fills up, and saves around 1-2 litres per flush, or 5 - 10,000 litres a year in a typical household. Anything that takes up space in the cistern (and doesn't float) will do. We have plastic bottles filled with water in ours. The bigger the cistern, the more bricks you should put in it. Old Victorian cisterns for example are huge, massively over-specified, and you should mostly fill them with bricks or bottles of water. If you find there is not enough water to get rid of the evidence, just take one of the bricks out.

So that's April's challenge - will you install a water displacement device in your toilet cisterns and reduce your household water usage by about 10%?

It's Raining, It's Pouring

We've been weeks without any rain. I've been going to the allotment every other day at least to water all the plants. In the last couple of days we've had the odd sprinkle for literally a few seconds, then nothing comes of it. Every night I've gone to bed expecting thunderstorms and cloudbursts in the night, but in the morning the ground is still dry and cracked.

But today we've had consistent drizzle. No thunder, no cloudbursts, no drama, but steady drizzle for at least a couple of hours now. That's the very best thing I could have hoped for. Beating heavy rain could flatten my established plants and wash away my seedlings, doing more harm than good. But this is perfect. Gentle steady rain. Fantastic.