Earth Day, a little late

My post for Earth Day is a little late this year. I must say that I am steamed, mad, and downright ready to rant. Over the past three months we worked on our Earth Day project. Our plan was to see how far we could reduce our water usage and in doing so, reduce our bill and prove how living green is better for your green (money).

We did our part with things like:

  • Using one cup a day per person

  • Saving water from cooking to give to the plants

  • Make sure nothing was leaking and toilets were running properly

  • Adding water bottles to the back of the toilet to reduce tank water

  • Flushing when needed

  • Reduced letting the water run during cleaning and teethbrushing

  • Heating water for cleaning, not letting it run to get hot

  • Cooling water in the fridge, not letting it run to get cold

  • Reducing the kids amount of clothing changes in a day, reducing our laundry

  • Cleaning stains right away and then only doing a full laundry load
We recently got our latest bill, and at first I was excited! We brought our water use down to 7 ccf for 3 months ( our highest use on record being 16 ccf), that translates to 5236 gallons for the quarter and 1745.33333 gallons a month.

Now, we are a homeschooling family, so 5 out of 6 of us are home full-time most days, which means our water use may be higher than some other families. Using these numbers, you can see that our use per person per day equals a little less than 10 gallons.The average home in the U.S. consumes about 69.3 gallons of water per person per day, according to a 1999 survey of 1,200 homes by the American Water Works Association. The average family of four consumes 6,300 gallons of water per month for indoor use.


So, knowing all these facts, I was ecstatic to see how far we had come. However, then I see that the bill amount was not reduced and at the bottom was a note, " ATTN: YOUR BILL INCLUDES A 40% WATER RATE INCREASE."It takes a lot to get me mad, and I am mad! This also came on the tail of our gas & electric being deregulated and therefore also increasing. I have a hard time enjoying the State and City I live in and this just makes it harder!

1 comment:

Garden State Kate said...

I feel you..I really do.
On behalf of Mother Earth, I thank you for your hard work! (hugs)
We have been trying to bring our usage down as well.

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