Ryan Gebhardt – Modulus 4

1.a

I live in a small town called Delran in Burlington County in Southern NJ. The households in this township are supplied by subterranean water wells, like most South Jersey townships, which are extracted by local water utilities and stored in water towers to be distributed. Excess and waste water from households enters the sewers through household pipes, which is sent to one of two water treatment facilities. The New Jersey Pollution Discharge Elimination System is in charge of purifying the water through a myriad of facilities used to discharge water back into the system. The water sent there gets purified by one of these facilities where it reenters the water supply. I thought this was interesting because I always thought we retrieved our water from the Delaware river and/or the Rancocas Creek, both of which are close by (Even Delran’s name derives from these two rivers.)

1.b

Water Using Activity Number of Times Water Expended
Shower 1 (15 minutes) 40 gallons
Toilet Usage 4 toilet flushes 7 gallons
Drinking Water 5 glasses  1 gallon
Hand washing 4 2 quarts
Brush teeth 2 2 quarts
Handwash Dishes 1 2 gallons
  Total 51 gallons

1.c

On Sunday, I attempted to use only two gallons of water for the whole day. I woke up and decided I had to skip a shower to get anywhere close to two gallons. I used the bathroom and washed my hands, realizing I had practically used up my daily allowance in one go. To only use two gallons of water a day, I’d probably need to completely forfeit any hope of using some for personal hygiene. If I drank less than one gallon of water a day and nothing else, I would be able to flush my toilet just once. So if I were to retry this task, I would first eliminate my use of many sanitary options. No toilets, no showers, little to no amount of water to wash out my mouth after brushing my teeth, use paper plates instead of reusable plates, only one or two glasses of drinking water and only wash hands before preparing a meal. In theory it sounds doable, in practice it is much harder to grasp how much water I use. Thinking about how much water I get to enjoy on a daily basis makes me very thankful to live in a country where this water usage is the norm. To live off only two gallons a day sounds like such a foreign concept to me.

3 thoughts on “Ryan Gebhardt – Modulus 4

  1. Hey Ryan, here is a link to my blog post: http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/02/10/module-4-dylan-hellings/

    It’s really cool that your town is named after the rivers you rely on, definitely speaks to the importance of water sources within a community! We use pretty similar amounts of water in our initial study, so I definitely know what you mean about it being very hard to live on 2 gallons a day. I agree that we are very fortunate to live in a nation where not only do we have enough water for our daily tasks but we can use water in wild excess without much of a cost to us. Great post, Ryan!

  2. Hi Ryan! I agree that it is difficult to live on two gallons of water a day when we are so used to having a seemingly endless supply of water. I tried to decrease the amount of time I shower but I failed miserably. I think that if we had different thoughts about personal hygiene, then this could be a possibility as we could cut out using water for showers, but since that is not the social norm, I don’t think this could work. I think that we don’t realize how privileged we are to have this much water at our disposal as we can use as much water as we wish and not experience immediate consequences for doing so.

    If you have a chance, take a look at my blog post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/10/water-usage-laura-young/

  3. Hi Ryan! My name is Mara and I am a Sophomore at Penn State UP. I am from a town in Northern New Jersey where we also get our water from wells. I was really amazed how you used only 51 gallons in one day compared to my 118 gallons (Good job!). I also agree that living on 2 gallons of water a day would be nearly impossible. By the time you wake up to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth you have already used over those 2 gallons. I thought your blog was good and really thought out. Here is a link to my blog if you get a chance:
    http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/02/10/module-4-individual-and-collective-action-2/

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