The water supply chain in my hometown of Harrisburg, PA in my specific neighborhood (Linglestown) comes from United Water Pennsylvania. While other homes in my neighborhood use well water as their source, my family’s water comes from the Susquehanna River, about 20 minutes from my house and with a watershed encompassing 24,000 square miles. Our water can also come from Stony Creek, which has a watershed encompassing 115 square miles. It is taken from the surface water of the river and the creek and then goes through United Water’s treatment plant at its Sixth Street Water Treatment Plant to be cleaned of contaminants. It then goes to my home for usage. After we use the water, it goes down the drain and into the sewage system. It then ends up at the treatment plant again and the process of cleaning the water and sending it to my house is repeated.
Usage of water per day:
- Teeth brushing twice = 5 gallons
- Face washing = 1 gallon
- Drinking water (about 4 glasses a day x 8 oz per glass) = .25 gallons
- Washing the dishes: 15 gallons x 3 times a day = 45 gallons
- Shower 5 gallons/minute x 30 minutes = 150 gallons
- 7 toilet flushes all day x 3 gallons = 21 gallons
After calculating my water usage in gallons, I found out I use about 218.75 gallons of water per day.
If I were living in an environment where I only had 2 gallons/day, I would have to cut back on water significantly (individual action). I do not use much water for cooking so I would instead use one gallon of water to bathe. The other gallon I would reserve for drinking. Realistically, I could never accomplish this. What I can do is cut back my shower time. Instead of a 30-minute shower I can use 5-minutes, making 150 gallons, 5 gallons. Because my shower is where I use the most water, cutting back would reduce my usage/day to 73.75 gallons. While this will make a small difference environmentally, I think real change would happen when people watch me reduce my usage. This might cause collective action within my friends and hopefully their families. However, water usage right now can be a collective action problem because many people want to act selfishly even though it would benefit society to reduce. Different places in the world have different resources, which affects their water usage. For example, people in Haiti do not have a large water supplier, and therefore, do not use nearly as much water as we do here in the U.S.
Hi Alyssa! My name is Julie and I’m an education major! I noticed that we use water in similar ways, but you used a lot more than I did because I used 75.24 gallons. The water supplier where I am from is (Dunmore, PA) is called the American Water Company. In fact my father works for this company, and I see that you mentioned your supplier is United Water Pennsylvania! My father told me about how Union Water company and the American Water company very similar so that means that we get our water almost the same way! I also noticed that you talked about collective action too! I agree that small actions can lead to a chain reaction of bigger actions! I feel as though sometimes we don’t realize that countries like Haiti have a limited supply of water, so we take advantage of our water supply. Here is link to my blog: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/09/daily-water-usage-julie-cardillo/
Hi Alyssa, I’m also from Harrisburg, and wrote about the water supply chain of United Water in my blog post (http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/10/water-tracking-usage-alex-deebel/). Our water in Hummelstown is sourced from Clarks Creek, which is right by Stony Creek. I was similar to you in the 2 gallon water exercise. I would be Succeed in only using two gallons… if I didn’t shower. I guess that’s how people live in developing nations like Haiti, however. It’s crazy how many gallons of water it takes to shower, that’s why I try to keep my showers to 5 minutes.