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.
