Tuesday 4 July 2023: Unorthodox Water Usage

Tuesday 4 July 2023: Unorthodox Water Usage

In April, the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) researched the “strange” water habits of people across England and Wales. They found the top 10 unusual water-based activities of the 2,126 adults surveyed:

1.      Flushing the toilet twice after a ‘number two' (90%)

2.      Running the washing machine or dishwasher when not full (67%)

3.      Taking a bath or shower to cool down (66%),

4.      Washing an item of clothing that isn’t dirty (65%)

5.      Staying in the bath so long it needs topping up with warm water (59%)

6.      Accidentally overwatering plants (58%)

7.      Urinating when in the shower (57%)

8.      Taking a bath or shower because it was cold (50%)

9.      Taking a shower or bath after having a 'number two' (48%)

10.  Using steam from the shower to help soothe a cough/running nose or to ease aches and pains (42%)

Thinking about the unusual ways you may use water, we'd love to know:

·         What are your overall thoughts on this list?

·         Are there any big surprises or shocks on this list?

·         Are there any unusual water-based activities you think are missing from this list?

·         What is the strangest or most unusual way you have used water? Perhaps it's washing concrete off a curious cat's paws or freezing your elf on the shelf in an ice block, we want to know!

I am unhappy about the presented list of water-related behaviours, not because each behaviour may represent ‘a waste of water’, the exposure of which I believe to be the purpose underlying the survey and presentation, but because the presentation of the list demonstrates an absence of sensitivity to the various personal needs that many people may have. It is as though the rational behaviour of individuals with an illness, a medical condition, an infirmity or a disability is being held up for disapproval. The list consists of ten, mostly intentional, water-use behaviours, presented in an overall context suggesting that such behaviours may be bizarre and/or gratuitous. The list as presented ranks the behaviours in order of frequency of occurrence. Instead, I have chosen to address the list of behaviours thematically.

Several of the items concerning matters of personal hygiene. One of these is that some people (48 percent of respondents) claim to have taken a bath/shower after having moved their bowels. I can appreciate this behaviour in several respects, and I have some sympathy with it. First, as a matter of personal hygiene, taking a shower after having moved one’s bowels would ensure both good hand hygiene and good hygiene in the groin area. This contrasts with two research studies carried out in Britain in 2008 and 2012 (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, "English Northerners' Hands Up To 3 Times Dirtier Than Those Living In England's South." Science Daily, 15 October 2008, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014204440.htm; a report on the BBC News website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19834975) that demonstrated, among other things that a significant proportion of people in Britain have faecal matter on their hands during everyday life, including when out shopping (handling money, credit cards, shopping baskets and shopping trolleys), as well as shaking hands when meeting people. I was living in north-eastern England at the time of these reports, and, if I recall correctly, Tyneside, was the worst place in the UK with something like 50% of Geordies having faecal matter on the hands. Were hand hygiene and personal hygiene improved, I imagine that this proportion would reduce, perhaps significantly. It should be remembered and remarked that in some parts of Europe, a bidet is part of bathroom furniture. When I was young, it used to be a commonplace that British people mocked continental European people for using a bidet. Were there space in my bathroom, I would welcome having a bidet. Some of the toilet tissue advertisements on television emphasise about "feeling clean" and in my limited experience, using a bidet is a method of "feeling clean” superior to using toilet tissue. When I was in Japan with my wife and daughter, we encountered toilets that have personal hygiene/cleaning built into the toilet, a bidet toilet if you will, with both a washing and drying function. This is especially useful for people who are infirm or have particular types of disability. If my daughter’s disabilities were less extreme, I have no doubt that we would have a bidet toilet. As it is, we have neither a bidet nor a bidet toilet, and so cleaning the groin area is limited to using toilet tissue. I suppose that a flannel and a basin warm of water would serve, or else taking a shower/bath. Unless one were to use a separate personal hygiene wash-cloth. then, to be quite honest, the shower sounds like a good idea. On a related matter, some people, perhaps especially older people, can easily suffer from anal bleeding, and in my personal experience, even the softest toilet tissue can feel like sandpaper on sensitive skin, in which case using soap and water is considerably more comfortable. Finally, on a prosaic level, many people move their bowels only once a day. If bowel movements are regular, and toilet training associated with incontinence management can aid regularity, then timing one’s shower after having moved one’s bowels uses no additional water. Enhance personal and hand hygiene might simply be a matter of timing.

A related issue is urinating in the shower (57 percent of respondents). It is undoubtedly a compromise of public health to urinate in a public shower, such as that at a public swimming pool, a gym or some other sports facility. However, urinating in one's own private shower compromises neither public nor personal health. Urine is typically sterile and so is unlikely to be the source of infection. I have read that regular urination in the shower (for people who do not experience urinary hesitancy) may both serve to reduce the capacity of one’s bladder, thus increasing the frequency at which a person feels the need to urinate, and introduces a conditioned response path to feeling the need to urinate every time one steps into a shower. If I need to urinate, I choose to do so before taking a shower. However, unlike my daughter for much of her life, I do not experience urinary hesitancy. On the other hand, many people do, especially older people, people with particular medical conditions, and people taking particular medications. Urinary hesitancy, as it is called, is anxiety-provoking and time-consuming. If the action of water falling onto one's skin, and the presence of warm water relaxing one’s muscles brings relief to people with urinary hesitancy, then I have every sympathy with them. As both men and women get older their capacity to manage the urine in their bladder tends to decline. For men, an enlarged prostate often increases the frequency of the need for nocturnal urination, and the sheer number of advertisements on television for incontinence products aimed at women, especially older women, is testimony to a reduced ability to hold back urinary flow. A great many people are taking diuretic medication (often for hypertension) which undoubtedly affects their ability to control the need to urinate. All of this, put together, suggests that disapproving of some people urinating in the shower is more than a little insensitive.

Next, 90 percent of respondents indicated they used water stored in the toilet cistern (i.e. fresh water) to flush the toilet twice in quick succession. It should be recognised that some people have large and solid bowel movements, and it might take more than one flush to clear their bowel movements from the toilet bowl. Moreover, for reasons I find it hard to explain, the radius of the u-bend in some toilets is especially small, such that even a moderately-sized bowel movement can find passage problematic. We have three toilets in our house, two of which work fine, and the third has this peculiarity a very small radius u-bend, which means that clearing bowel movements from the toilet can often require a second flush. What are we supposed to do? We could have the current toilet removed and replaced with a toilet we have confirmed in advance has a larger radius u-bend. Maybe if we lived in the Sahel or the Rub’ al Khali, then replacing the toilet would be a proportionate response. As it is, we have a water conserving regime in our house, and a lot of buckets holding ‘grey water’, and in any one week there are very few toilet flushes that draw fresh water from the toilet cistern. Maybe Affinity Water could lobby the government to improve building regulations so that newly-installed toilets do not have such a small radius u-bend.

Taking a cool shower in order to cool down when the weather is very hot (66 percent of respondents) may be a little luxury for some people, but is essential, and potentially life-saving for others. Subsequent to a major surgical operation last year, my daughter's body appears to have lost its ability to regulate its temperature (part of her homoeostasis). During the most recent winter, despite the weather not been that cold, my daughter had to be wrapped in blankets, and her wheelchair positioned close to a radiator, sometimes with the electrical fan heater switched on, in order to keep her warm. Once the weather started to get very much warmer (over 26 degrees Celsius), we began to notice that her core temperature (measured using an accurate in-ear thermometer) was frequently elevated, often to warning levels and sometimes to take-action level: over 39° Celsius. We do not have a portable air conditioner, although I think we probably ought to buy one. We have desk fans that are trained on her during the warmer parts of the day. My wife has sponged her down on occasions as recommended, and once or twice given her a cool shower. It is not just a matter of reducing her skin temperature, but reducing her core temperature so that she is not at risk of heat exhaustion. There have been times when we have been close to driving her to the local accident and emergency department, where, no doubt, we would then be directed to sit in a poorly ventilated waiting-room for five or six hours with large numbers of other people. Not an appealing prospect. If a cooling shower can prevent such an outcome, then it seems to me to be both desirable and proportionate. There are a great many people in Britain, especially older people whose homoeostasis is compromised, and a proportion of whom will die in hot weather. I believe that these people should be encouraged to take cooling showers not discouraged from doing so.

Some people take showers in order to get warm (50 percent of respondents). There are many old people who are at risk of hypothermia during the winter. Even before the current cost-of-energy crisis, they were unable to afford to heat their home adequately. If they are at risk of hypothermia, then it means that their core body temperature has reduced significantly. If heating a small bathroom and standing in a shower for five minutes makes hypothermia less likely, then they should not be censured for doing so. Having a cup of tea, and warming one's hands in front of a one bar electric fire, are unlikely to do much for core temperature, and certainly not very quickly. Whilst I am peculiarly sensitive to ambient temperature, and I am very likely to take prompt action should I become either overheated or cold, my wife is very different, and can sit for hours, not recognising that she has become severely chilled. She is not old, whereas many people who are old and at risk of hypothermia in the winter, can easily slip into a situation in which they have become hypothermic without realising it. I believe that it is at other people's peril that we are encouraged to censure the idea of taking a warm shower in order to return core temperature to a safe level.

There are people (42 percent of respondents) who run the shower in order to get the steam. Whilst I have never done this specifically, I find it easy to understand why someone might do so. I suffer from sinusitis with some frequency (probably something to do with my parents chain-smoking when I was a child, my early years in London smogs, and living for much of my life beside dense diesel traffic). I have and use a ‘facial sauna’ to generate steam, a towel over my head, and some drops of Olbas oil, which helps to relieve my sinuses for a while. I know that some people use a bowl of boiling water, with a towel over their head, although in my experience the water cools down so rapidly that the procedure is only partially effective. It is with considerable enthusiasm that I have sat for significant periods of time in spa steam rooms and felt the considerable relief and relaxation of the tension in my sinuses. Sometimes, after having been in the steam room, I feel like a new person. Were I to come into large amounts of money, I would dearly love to have a steam room in the house. I find it easy to understand that people with sinuses more troublesome than my own would want to run the shower in order to get the benefit of the steam. As I indicated previously, I have not done this specifically, but there are times when my sinuses have greatly benefited from me having my scheduled hot shower.

People are sometimes criticised for taking long baths, and specifically of a length that requires the bath to be topped up with hot water (59 percent of respondents). I take baths only during the winter months, between switching on the central heating in October and switching if off in May. My baths are always of considerable duration: preferably at least an hour and half in length. I take the opportunity to read a book. Being in the bath so long demands frequently topping-up the bath with water from the hot water tap. However, I run no water into the bath from the cold-water tap. Instead, I make best use of the cold water that is initially in the hot water pipe run (about 7 litres), so I first step into a very shallow bath. Subsequently, water running through the pipes from the hot water storage tank to the bath cools a little in the time taken between additions of hot water. Initially, I top up the water in the bath up every five minutes or so, and as the bath gets progressively fuller, so the time between top-ups extends to and beyond ten minutes. I use Epsom salts in the bath in order to allow some bicarbonate to soak into my skin and muscles. The hot water slowly allows my muscles to relax, and if am fortunate, by the time I get out of the bath, I do feel fully relaxed, the only time in the week when I do so. After I get out the bath, the water stays stored in the bath (90 litres = 15 toilet flushes), and is bucketed for use, mostly for flushing toilets. It lasts a week, until the next bath. Nothing gets wasted. I wish to make an additional comment, relating both to taking a bath and taking a shower. I have no doubt that there are people who do not like the sensation of water on their skin, or do not like the sensation of water falling onto their skin. I am not one of those people. My skin feels less taut when it is wet, and I have always loved sensation of water falling onto my skin. For me, baths and showers are innocent sensory pleasure.

One of the items on the list is "accidentally overwatering plants" (58 percent of respondents). This is peculiarly non-specific. It does not indicate whether the plants are in pots, planters or hanging baskets in/around the house, or plants in the garden. When it comes to watering houseplants in pots, then the recommended way of watering is to place the entire pot into some water and let the plant and growing medium soak up the water it needs. In my experience the process can take an hour. If one has a lot of pots, then this could be a time-consuming job. The next best is to water the plants from the top and stop watering when water starts to appear in the saucer beneath the pot. This can be touch and go, depending on the dryness of the growing medium. A dried-out growing medium (which indicates that the plant has probably been left too long without having been watered) will allow water to pass through the medium very quickly without retaining very much, and so even a modest amount of water being given to the plant will result in the saucer quickly filling with water. Watering house plants from the top requires care. It is very easy to get it wrong. I do not imagine that anyone tries to get it wrong, and therefore the use of the word ‘accidentally’, whilst clearly accurate, need not be synonymous with carelessly. Moving outside the house, particularly for hanging baskets, which usually have a very small quantity of growing medium relative to the number of plants in the basket, it is almost essential to over-water in order to ensure the maximum amount of water in the hanging basket. There is no reason why a bucket cannot be put underneath the hanging basket to collect the water that drips through. Regarding fruit and vegetable plants in the garden, panellists on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Gardeners Question Time’ deprecate giving individual plants frequent sips of water. They recommend soaking the bed and then letting the bed dry out before administering more water. This is what encourages proper root growth, whereas apportioning meagre rations of water to each plant means that the roots do not extend themselves to find water when the soil becomes drier. When I have rationed water, the fruit and vegetable plants do not grow to their full stature, and crop only inadequately. I use only watering cans, not a hose pipe, ten litres of water per can. Watering our food plants involves many trips from and to the house. Before someone suggests that I should be using stored water from water butts in the garden, may I say that the three, four or five months droughts that we often now seem to experience mean that the water butts of winter rain totalling about 1500 litres can be exhausted in ten days. To those people, which probably includes the water companies, who might wonder whether maybe I should not be growing fruit and vegetables, I ask: who supplies the water to grow the fruit and vegetables that customers buy from the supermarket? I suggest that the people who chose to include this item in their water use survey are not gardeners and have few houseplants.

Running a washing machine that is not full (67 percent of respondents) sounds like a wasteful activity, until one stops to think about people who live on their own. How many vests, socks or pairs of underwear does one have to own in order to be able to fill the washing machine with clothes that can be washed together? I live in a household of three, and my daughter generates a lot of laundry as a direct result of her disabilities: the washing machine is run three or four times overnight every week. Even so, it can be a fortnight before a sweater or cardigan makes the journey from washing basket to washing machine. How much longer would this journey take for a single person? Through experimentation, and careful reading of the water meter, I discovered that the washing machine assesses the size of the load, and accordingly uses less water for smaller loads.

In summary, I have no doubt that some people behave wastefully with water, and encouraging these people to consider ways to waste less water is a good thing to do. However, the circumstances of many individuals may not conform to an ideal for least water consumption, and lack of explicit recognition of this suggests and communicates a failure of empathy.