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5 Innovations That Help Conserve Water

By Samhita Pokkunuri, Grade 8


Have you ever considered what happens to the world around you when you forget to turn off the sink or spend too much time in the shower? Or put off fixing the pipe leak that's been torturing you for months? Chances are, you probably haven't. But as it turns out, these little details make more of an impact than you think. Did you know that each American uses an average of 88 gallons of water at home a day? That's about 32,000 gallons of water per year! (1) According to the United Nations, around two-thirds of the world's population is likely to face water scarcity by 2025. (2) Yikes. Before you get scared and stop taking showers entirely though, here are five innovative ideas that have helped relieve our world's water crisis.


1) The Eco-Drop Shower: A primary source of excessive water usage is showers. Eco-Drop, created by Tommaso Colia, has pairs of concentric circles that will rise after a while, signaling that your showering is done for the day. (3) Eco-Drop also uses eco-friendly materials; this innovation provides a unique way to conserve water daily. (This was actually made ten years ago, but the invention is still relevant and definitely deserves a spot on this list!)


2) Faucet Buddy: The name of this innovation pretty much describes its purpose. Faucet Buddy, designed by Baek Uyeol, is a small application you add to your faucet or any sink you have around your house. It'll notify you of how much water you've been using to help prevent you from wasting too much on a daily basis. And as a tiny plus, it tells you how hot or cold your shower water is so you know what you are getting into. (4)


3) Bamboo Warkawater Towers: The Bamboo Warkawater Towers look like any ordinary tower to a person who doesn't know what they do. However—and this may seem surprising—these towers can produce 13 to 26.4 gallons of water per day! (5) How? Rain, fog, and dew condense against the mesh outside the structure and go down a funnel into a reservoir, where it’s stored and further condensed into water.


4) Waterpebble: Created by Paul Priestman, this innovative device encourages people to reduce their shower time, as it measures the amount of water going down your plughole as you shower. The light flashes from green to red to symbolize that you are finished showering. This device exponentially reduces your shower time by motivating you to make sure your device is always green! (6) As you continue to use the device, the time it takes for the light to flash from green to yellow to red shrinks.


5) Eco Gadgets - Perfect Flush: Made by Brondell, a manufacturing company, this little gadget's flush system can help you save up to 50% of water! (7) Perfect Flush’s mechanism allows your toilet to run on less water. It comes with two buttons: you can either use a full-flush (therefore emptying the tank), or a half-flush, meaning that the toilet will only use about 50-70% of the water necessary to flush your toilet. Not only does it conserve tons of water, but it also takes only 30 minutes to install, making it an efficient, easy-to-use device!


These five innovations have made an impact on the water crisis today. Without them, we'd likely be suffering a far worse fate than we are already. But just because there are innovations out there to help conserve water doesn't mean your job is complete—your actions still make a difference, no matter how small, and there are tons of ways you can help conserve water in your daily life. One thing is absolutely clear: there is still a bubble of hope, and you can make that bubble bigger.


(1) https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts

(2) https://www.seametrics.com/blog/water-conservation-facts/

(3) https://www.igreenspot.com/the-eco-drop-shower-by-tommaso-colia/

(4) https://www.yankodesign.com/2008/01/15/faucet-buddy-tells-you-about-water/

(5) https://www.wired.com/2015/01/architecture-and-vision-warkawater/

(6) https://www.waterpebble.com/

(7) https://ecofriend.com/eco-gadgets-perfect-flush-makes-any-toilet-save-up-to-50-water.html

Cover photo from myownwater.com

Does Meat Meet Our Water Conservation Standards?

By Zoe Xu, Grade 11


Enter a McDonald’s anywhere in America and you can buy a cheeseburger for a dollar. Americans eat approximately 0.6 pounds of meat a day, totaling 222 pounds in a year. (1) It’s no revelation that meat is practically part of the American psyche, nor is it surprising that globally, the water footprint of meat accounts for a third of the entire agriculture industry (2)— which already constitutes 70% of the world’s water usage. (3) After all, each pound of beef has a water footprint of 1800 gallons, while a pound of pork takes around 576 gallons (4) and chicken hides 519 gallons. (5)


Those numbers might seem excessive, but remember that animals aren’t born full-grown and ready for consumption. We’re all probably familiar with the concept of the energy pyramid which indicates this: every time energy (or any resource) transfers up through another consumer in the pyramid, we lose 10% of that energy. Of course, this is a bit of a simplification, but the idea that it costs more to consume beef instead of soy, or chicken instead of lentils, remains. Of the water that it takes to create a pound of beef, 98% goes to the cow’s diet (6)— not its water intake, but to maintain grass pastures and grow feed. Even when the meat industry is broken down from small farms to industrial systems, the water footprint is significant in both; small farms are less efficient than industrial systems because those cows are normally grass-fed, move often, and take longer to mature, which increases water usage, but industrial systems see an increase in their blue and grey water footprint due to the process of growing and making feed, as well as diluting the resultant pollutants from the manufacturing of feed. (7) For better reference, the global average for the water footprint of a pound of lettuce is 15 gallons, avocado is 220 gallons, and potatoes are 30 gallons. (8) There’s evidently variation for plant products, but meat, especially beef, egregiously outstrips the water footprints of vegetables. And in a world increasingly threatened by water shortage, where the UN’s projections for 2025 (9) predict that 30 nations will be water-scarce and the projections for 2030 place global water demand at 40% more than the usable supply (10), it seems every gallon of water counts — and with these circumstances, the prominence of the meat industry’s water footprint is worrying.


Of course, none of us can control the meat industry directly — that depends on government regulation. However, as individual consumers, we can be aware of the industries and companies we give our support to and the impacts of what we eat or use, and consciously choose more environmentally friendly products. Perhaps you’ve already thought of an alternative source of protein; you can find lists of popular substitutes in almost any vegetarian blog. After all, there’s a wide variety of high-protein plants to choose from: soy, lentils, potatoes, sweet corn, hempseed, almost any kind of bean, peas, quinoa, oats, chia seeds, most nuts… the list goes on. You’ll even find protein in bananas. Beyond that, there’s the option of seitan, which is high in protein and resembles the texture of regular meat. There are healthy and enjoyable alternatives for meat out there and those alternatives could drastically reduce the water footprint of agriculture.


You might find it difficult still to give up meat entirely, and that’s understandable. For instance, chicken nuggets are a phenomenon outside of time, a classic and (to some) a comfort food. This is far from a call for all of us to become vegetarians — after all, there’s no push for everyone to stop taking baths to decrease individual water consumption, but there is a call to decrease shower times and not choose a bath every day. Likewise, there are probably replacements in your diet that can be made without going fully vegetarian if you’re anything like the average American; for instance, replacing a steak with tofu once a week and choosing to eat meats with smaller water footprints, or packing a quinoa salad for work instead of planning to grab a burger from a fast food joint at lunch. Every shift of habit towards water conservation is important, and in a setting where water shortage is an excruciatingly real threat looming in our future, it’s our civic and moral responsibility to find ways to minimize and be more conscious of our water footprints.


Cover photo from Water Online

Water Isn't Permanent: The Fast Fashion Industry's Impact

By Ryan Zhao, Grade 7


In this world, not many things are permanent, and water definitely isn’t one of them. With our current water consumption, the following scenario is plausible: It’s 2050, and Ben Jackson has worked tirelessly to spread awareness about the water shortage. “It’s a thirsty planet! Use less water! The clothing companies are lying to us!” he chants, with dozens of other protesters. He’s outside the Capitol Building, the sun glaring down tauntingly. “It’s your fault, it’s his fault, it’s everybody’s fault because you don’t have enough water for anything,” it seems to say. Ben doesn’t know how long he’ll be here. He doesn’t know how long he should be here. But it seems like it’ll be a long time since this is an important event. He suddenly feels nauseous and dizzy, close to passing out. A fellow protester notices him. She brings him around and tells him, “You need to stay hydrated.” Ben, still nauseous, replies, “If only we could.”


This scenario is all too likely, as humanity is using more and more water every year. The population is growing and demands clothing, food, and industrial products. This means that we are running out of water, and quickly. We have only 62 quadrillion gallons of accessible drinking water. Much of this water is contaminated, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that all of this water is usable for drinking and industry. To make a single pair of jeans, you need to use about 10,000 gallons of water. A lot of the water is unusable after, as there are chemicals put in the water to get that distressed, worn-out look. (That’s why the average pair of jeans uses more water than the average t-shirt.) We are making a lot of jeans—nearly 4 billion pairs per year. Now, remember a lot of these pants are washed in a chemical bath, and the runoff almost always goes into a river or lake nearby. This means that the nearby water source is sometimes contaminated and needs to be purified. This takes a lot of effort, and the industrial cost is also pretty high. It’s a vicious cycle. And that’s just clothes — it turns out that only two industries consume almost ¾ of our global water usage. It’s unbelievable. Even worse, they aren’t slowing down, especially textiles.


Clothing companies are using more water than ever under the guise of recycling water and textiles. Many companies are running campaigns that say they recycle and reuse textiles to reduce the cotton or wool needed for new clothes. But this just isn’t happening. A tag might have a label saying, “This was made using 100% recycled materials.” You might think to yourself, “Hmm. I should buy this shirt. It was made using environmentally friendly ways, and I’m increasing demand for these recycled shirts.” Yes, that’s great and all, but 95% of the time, only the tag is made from recycled materials and the shirt is made as usual. It’s a con. Besides clothing, agriculture consumes almost 70% of the water we use, which includes the water used to grow textiles for clothes. Industry uses a little more than 4%. Think about that.


That’s why it’s so important for us to stop using so much water. You’ve probably heard a million times, but I’ll say it again: There are many ways to cut down water usage. You can boycott fast fashion companies. You can take shorter showers. You can stop the sink when you’re brushing your teeth. You can hand wash your dishes. We use water all the time, so if you can’t find something to cut down on, look harder. Who knows? Our future might look a little something like this—


2070 rolls around and there finally isn’t a water shortage. Ben Jackson gazes at his neighborhood, reflecting on what he had done to make this possible. All the protests, all the walks, all the appeals to his government. It hadn’t been in vain after all. In the end, the masses still have power that should be used. Of course, it isn’t paradise yet, but it’s better, and like Ben, we all have the power to make it so. Do what you can, and remember JFK: “Ask not what water can do for you, but ask what you can do for water.”


Cover photo from The Guardian

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