Water Use and You!

So, now that we know that only 1% of all the water on Earth is accessible and usable for all living things, how do you use your water? According to the Institute of Medicine (IoM) an adult male needs to consume about 11 cups and the average adult female needs to consume about 9 cups of water per day; so lets take the average and say an adult needs to consume 10 cups of water per day. So, assuming a 30 day month, an average adult will need to consume 300 cups (or 2400 fl. oz.) per month. I don’t believe I drink this much water, but let’s pretend I do.

OK then, I consume 300 cups (where 1 cup is 8 fl. oz.) per month. I live with my wife and 2 cats. So, my household monthly water needs for my wife and I are 600 cups plus the water our cats drink; and for this exercise lets assume the cat’s consumption is negligible. So, per month my wife and I need 600 cups of water. I just got my water bill yesterday, and according to my water bill, we used 300 cubic feet of water.

So, 300 cubic feet of water……. How much water is that? Put on your thinking caps, cause here come some conversions.

1 cubic foot of water (imagine a container where each side is foot long, and now fill it with water)

How many gallons are in a cubic foot? 1 cubic foot = 7.48 gallons

How many cups of water in one gallon? 1 gallon of water = 16 cups of water

Now that we have our conversions, let’s do the math.

Me and my wife need 600 cups of water. 600 cups is equal to 37.5 gallons (600/16). So, me and the better half need 37.5 gallons of water per month to be adequately hydrated.

Our total water usage for this last month was 300 cubic feet, how many gallons is that? 300 cubic feet of water is equal to 2,244 gallons (300 * 7.48).

So, our total water usage for one month is 2,244 gallons and we only drank 37.5 gallons. So, for all the water we used, only 1.7% of this water was used for drinking.

This means that 98.3% of our water goes down the drain. How much water do you use?

 

Sources:

(IoM, http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/DRI_Electrolytes_Water.pdf)