The main aim of the challenge is to not use more than 5 litres of water per day. This means that I have 5 litres of water per day for things such as drinking, cooking, showering, clothes washing and for personal hygiene. I was inspired to do this challenge because once I arrived back into the UK, I realised just how much water I used compared to the amount I used in India, and the bad effects that it had.
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| My 5 litres of water put into bottles |
Whilst living in my host home in Kotri, I used around 30 litres per day to drink, wash, shower with etc. It is said that a person needs a minimum of 20 litres per day to survive.* I decided to challenge myself and live on a quarter of this figure to highlight just how hard it is to live with a scarcity of water. I put my 5 litres of water into bottles with labels on to help me to keep track of how much water I used for each need and to make sure that I used my water most effectively.
Day one was actually a lot easier for me than I thought it would be - but I do think this is because I got used to not using an abundance of water for three months and it became normality for me. However, not being able to turn a tap and have water flow freely from it was quite difficult. We are extremely lucky in the UK to be able to turn a tap and to have seemingly unlimited water at our expense. Using water from a bottle, on the other hand, for things such as washing my hands and face, was hard because I felt like I was wasting unnecessary water.
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| Water used for hygiene |
After washing my hands, face and brushing my teeth, I had used 500ml from my allocated 1 litre for the day. This worried me a little as I had only 500ml left to wash my hands several times throughout the day, and to wash my hand and brush my teeth at the end of the day. Luckily for me, I managed to do it with the help of having adequate resources available in terms of sanitation, unlike approximately 1/3 of the world's population.* By the end of the day, I had just enough water to wash my face (without soap) and brush my teeth.
I didn't have enough water to have my "before bed" cup of tea though, which was mildly displeasing.
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| 1.5 litres of water to shower with |
Showering was quite hard as I had only 1.5 litres of water to clean myself with - body and hair. As it shows in the photo, the amount of water barely even covered my foot. I realised that there was no way in hell that I could wash my body and my hair with such a little amount, so stuck to washing my body and decided that I would have to take days in turn, one day shower, one day wash my hair.
Bucket showering is the main way to shower in India, and I was extremely lucky there to be able to use around 6 litres of water to shower with meaning that I could wash my body and hair without having to strategically plan it out. Living in the UK, I have several choices on how to wash myself - and all of them include as much water as I want to use and for however long. An 8 minute shower in the UK uses approximately 62 litres of water.*
Despite the extremely limited amount of water, I felt considerably cleaner using the 1.5 litres as using a bucket, and being conscious of the water usage makes me pay more attention to making sure that all of me is clean. (As well as knowing that I could wash my hair the next day).
I successfully managed to shower, wash my clothes, keep up my personal hygiene and drink and cook with my 5 litres a day, although I had no water left at the end of the day.
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Here is a few tips that I have thought of for people to use less water:
- Always turn faucets off when not using water. Leaving the water running when brushing your teeth, washing your face, even washing your hands, is a waste of water. I used 1 litre to keep up good personal hygiene for 24 hours by not leaving taps on or using any more water than what was needed.
- When water is running, don't run it too fast. The faster the water comes out the tap, the more is wasted, and it will probably splash everywhere and that's not fun.
- When showering, try to shower for only as long as needed. I tend to do "5 minute" showers - listen to a song 5 minutes long and get out the shower when the song has ended.
- Don't use excessive amounts of product to wash with. The more product you use, the more water is used to wash it off.
I will post more each day of my experiences of my #5Litresaday challenge.
* https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/
* http://everylittledrop.com.au/knowledge-center/how-much-water-does-a-person-need/* http://www.wateraid.org/what-we-do/the-crisis/statistics
* http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15836433
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