In my hometown only a few areas public water and sewage; areas where recent housing developments arose after farmers gave into real estate developers.  Therefore, my family gets our water from a well system and use a septic tank for waste water.  Water is drawn up through pipes from deep within the earth and is stored in tanks in our basement for future use.  Fortunately for us, our water is clean from the source and has the right vitamins and minerals to give our water a clean and refreshing taste.    Water that is used in the sink, shower, washing machine, and other non-sewage sources go into an underground tank called a grey water holding tank.  This water goes through different layers of sand and gravel and other natural filtration features of the ground. Water from toilets, called black water, is sent to a series of tanks called a septic system.  One of the tanks filter out solid wastes, while another tank is responsible for filtering the liquid in a similar fashion as the grey water using sand and gravel layers.  Ultimately the water is returned to the watershed in which the well draws from making it a cyclical process.

Living on a limit of two gallons of water/day would be quite different.  The main components in my life that require water are drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene.  After much thought, it’s clear that much of these areas will have to change to accommodate the water per day limit.  The first priority is drinking water.  It’s is recommended that humans should intake 1/2 gallon of water a day.  In order to stay healthy this daily intake of water didn’t change.  Now a gallon and a half remains.  When cooking the majority of water used in the post cleanup of the utensils and pans.  An effective strategy to limit water use is to sparingly wet the pans and sponge. Lastly after scrubbing each item, I used the bare minimum of water to rinse.  Lastly, for daily personal hygiene like showering and brushing teeth, a similar strategy was implemented to conserve water consumption. After trying, it was successful, but definitely hard to maintain.  Comparing numbers in 1-b, it’s quite humbling that people use 1/20 of the water I use daily.  It’s also clear that living in a geographical location where clean water isn’t readily accessible is a huge factor in water use.