One-fourth of Americans drink water from systems that don’t meet standards

Re:One-fourth of Americans drink water from systems that don... by clarry on Sunday March 10, 2019 @05:45PM (#19354766)

Showering, bathing, washing hands, flushing toilet, washing dishes, washing clothes, washing surfaces or floors (i.e. wetting and washing the rag/mop you use for wiping said surfaces), maybe watering lawns & washing cars, if I had to guess.

It's surprisingly easy and quick to run way more water than you could drink in a day just for some daily cleaning duties.

Come to think of it, I drink around 2 liters per day; that's six mugs of coffee plus maybe a couple glasses of water.

How much water do I spend when I flush the toilet once and then wash my hands? I do that quite a few times every day.

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Re:One-fourth of Americans drink water from systems that don... by viraptor on Sunday March 10, 2019 @06:00PM (#19354873)

Some of those are handled more efficiently in Australia. Water tanks are required with new builds and they usually do rain collection. Those feed into toilets, lawn sprinklers, washing machine, etc. All car washes in the town also use some form of not drinkable water.

I'm not sure about the water used for cleaning though. If you want your hands to be clean before eating, why would you clean them in something your can't safely drink?

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Re:One-fourth of Americans drink water from systems that don... by jcranmer on Sunday March 10, 2019 @08:39PM (#19355791)

> maybe watering lawns & washing cars

Water usage is twice as high in summer as it is in winter. There's a reason why, when mandatory water restrictions go in effect, the first thing that's banned is watering lawns.

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