Don't tell me to have a shorter shower

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004-2005 (the latest water account), Australia used nearly 80 000 gigalitres of water.

80 000 gigalitres = 40 million olympic swimming pools.

Also according to the Australian government "Around three-quarters of this water was returned to the environment . The remainder was consumed across the economy."

Does anyone else get that oesophegous-tightening feeling at that statement? I presume they mean that three-quaters of this water goes directly back to the environment, because last time I checked water goes in a cycle.

The reason why I'm writing this, is today while having one of my delicious long hot showers, I was thinking about how the government and the tree-huggers are trying to get the general public to use less water.


Australian households account for only 11% of the total water usage. We only use 2108 out of the 80 000 gigalitres. That's not really that much, or is it?

Now, we all know why we 'need' to use less water, but I was having a delicious long think about this and how much difference does my shower make if it's 16 minutes shorter?

Well according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, per minutes a shower uses between 10 and 25 gallons. So for this, lets just say; per minute a shower uses 15 gallons or 56 litres.

If I have a 20 minute (long) shower, I'd use 1120 litres of water.

If I have a 4 minute (short) shower, I'd use 224 litres of water.

The difference is: 896 litres of water, and that sounds like quite a bit.

And if everyone in Australia had short showers (21 million of us, according to the CIA), we'd be saving a whopping...

18 816 000 000 litres of water

The number alone, with all it's zeros sounds like a lot of water, in fact it's 18 gigalitres, or 9000 olympic swimming pools.

But flicking upwards to before, Australia uses 40 MILLION olympic swimming pools of water.

If everyone in Australia had short showers, we'd be saving 9000 olympic swimming pools of water, that's 18 gigalitres, or 18 816 000 000 litres, or 0.000225 percent of the total water usage in Australia.

So next time you have a short shower, and feel ever so proud of yourself because you've done your bit for the environment, just think to yourself; I've just saved 0.0000008 percent of Australia's total water usage.

Yay me!