I decided to make an estimate on the amount of water used when doing laundry since I do a load of laundry once a week and I want to know about how much water is used or wasted. I live in the dorms, which happen to have newer laundry machines so I assume they are more efficient than older machines. I looked up the amount of water used in a high – efficiency washer, which is about 15-29 gallons, thus I used 15 gallons for the math.
Calculations: \[ 1 \text{person}\times \frac{1 \text {load}}{ 15\text{gallons}}\times \frac{1 \text{week}}{1\text{load}}\times\frac{1\text{year}}{51\text{weeks}} = 780 \text{ gallons per year} \]
The New York Times article made me realize how dire the water crisis is already. Even though the dorm washing machines are more efficient, it is still almost 800 gallons of water used per person per year. There should be more ways to conserve water, especially in the countries that need too. Hopefully water management can be improved with the ideas listed at the end of the article. For example, if farmers switch from water intensive crops to crops that don’t need as much water, then that will save gallons of water.
Bibliography:
“Clothes Washer.” Clothes Washer | Home Water Works, www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/clothes-washer.