How are you "wasting water" when you leave your faucet running?

conservation of mass wrote:

I have been told that it is wasteful to let water from the faucet run down the drain. Can someone explain this?

The water comes out of the ground, then eventually makes it to my faucet before running down my drain. Once the water runs down my drain, it goes through the sewage treatment plant, then gets dumped into a local creek and ultimately ends up going back down into the ground.

So the water started in the ground, and ends up back in the ground, but somehow has been waisted in the whole process?

you are not very smart.

conservation of mass wrote:

I have been told that it is wasteful to let water from the faucet run down the drain. Can someone explain this?

The water comes out of the ground, then eventually makes it to my faucet before running down my drain. Once the water runs down my drain, it goes through the sewage treatment plant, then gets dumped into a local creek and ultimately ends up going back down into the ground.

So the water started in the ground, and ends up back in the ground, but somehow has been waisted in the whole process?

As a engineer for a municipal water department, I was going to entertain this question.

But as soon as I read "The water comes out of the ground..." made me realize how little you know about the water infrastructure in this country and the water treatment process. Read up on that first and you will answer your own question.

Every water producing agency is required to release an Annual Water Quality Report. Going through 2015s (Or 2016 if it has been released) is a good starting point.

His point is still accurate. Water does not disappear like a fossil fuel. It stays in the form of water, somewhere.

Straw man city wrote:

His point is still accurate. Water does not disappear like a fossil fuel. It stays in the form of water, somewhere.

Again, start to read up on the water infrastructure, water treatment process and you will realize where the waste is.

First, consider the drought that California was experiencing for some years.

If you are running an unnecessary amount of water on your lawn so you and Mr. Jones next door can see who has the greenest grass in Suburbiaville, you are taking away from what little water is available in the reservoirs. And like in California, the water doesn't directly flow back into the reservoirs that feed your super high tech lawn irrigation system. It goes elsewhere. Then you and Mr. Jones are f***ed, along with the rest of the community, who is now rationing off water because the reservoirs did not refill.

If you solely consider water as the waste, then sure, in conventional wastewater treatment plants and septic systems (with leach field), water is returned to the environment. And maybe that water magically rejuvenates the reservoirs every day.

But that is in a perfect world where the wastewater treatment plant and your septic system functions as engineered. Unfortunately, most of that isn't maintained well and produces low-quality effluent full of crap other than water. So you aren't getting potable, clean water back into the system.

Then start to consider the wear and tear on the pumps, pipes, equipment, etc. So we don't end up in the crapper, assets need to be replaced. Where does that money come from? Same number of taxpayers in the community + more water usage = higher taxes for the community.

conservation of mass wrote:

So the water started in the ground, and ends up back in the ground, but somehow has been waisted in the whole process?

They mean you are wasting treated water. Yes, there can be a limited supply of that and it costs money to treat.

I, on the other hand, have a 180 foot deep well. The water table around here is at 60 feet. So, your ideas of not wasting water apply more to me than to city folks.

People are always telling me not to leave the faucet on for 10 seconds yet they take 10 minute long hot showers. Just another liberal environmentalist campaign to make you feel guilty about modern technology instead of enjoying it. Our city has wasted $50B on a light rail that serves almost no one, so I'm pretty sure we can afford some desalination plants if we ever have a drought.

All I have to say is you can't destroy nor create energy.

The same water is always somewhere on Earth in some form and it will always come back to where it started over a long enough period of time.

Keep your showers long folks.

conservation of mass wrote:

I have been told that it is wasteful to let water from the faucet run down the drain. Can someone explain this?

The water comes out of the ground, then eventually makes it to my faucet before running down my drain. Once the water runs down my drain, it goes through the sewage treatment plant, then gets dumped into a local creek and ultimately ends up going back down into the ground.

So the water started in the ground, and ends up back in the ground, but somehow has been waisted in the whole process?

You're wasting money, that could be use to buy more water.

You're not wrong, but it depends on where you are.

My wastewater goes back into the stream that my water came out of, so no net loss of water from the stream.

If you live in an arid region (and other places), you might be pulling out of an aquifer that is not being recharged at the same rate, thus depleting that aquifer.

No matter where it comes from and where it's going, it takes energy to treat and/or transport it to you, so you are wasting energy when you waste water. That energy is pretty well reflected in your water bill most of the time and is probably not a big part of your energy footprint overall.

I teach and do research in water treatment and water quality and it does bug me a little when people act like water is lost forever once it's used. There was this stupid commercial a couple months ago that implied that you using water in the US somehow deprived people in developing countries from getting water. Providing clean water in developing communities has been my passion for 30 years, my hobby, and now my job, but wow was that commercial stupid.

But there's no reason to waste water either.

You can't waste energy either. Happy to make Americans wiser step by step

You can't waste water on a global scale but onn a local scale you can

When you waste water you waste negative entropy.

On a related note, when a man dies, it creates quite the feast for maggots.

The water you waste will not be gone, it will be in some form somewhere in the water cycle. However, those same water molecules probably won't end of back in the reservoir from where they came, and may not even end of back as accessible fresh water for a long time.

conservation of mass wrote:

waisted

HardLoper wrote:

People are always telling me not to leave the faucet on for 10 seconds yet they take 10 minute long hot showers. Just another liberal environmentalist campaign to make you feel guilty about modern technology instead of enjoying it. Our city has wasted $50B on a light rail that serves almost no one, so I'm pretty sure we can afford some desalination plants if we ever have a drought.

It's always liberal that or liberal this with you... did some liberal steal your girlfriend? Chill out with the politics.

Go out and buy some bottles of water and then dump the water down the drain. Do you consider that water to be "waisted"? Is anything wasted in that scenario?

Suppose you were stranded in a desert and had 1 gallon of water to sustain you until you were rescued. It you knock over the container and some of the water spills is that water wasted? It is in the sense that is could probably be put to better use from your standpoint.

HardLoper wrote:

People are always telling me not to leave the faucet on for 10 seconds yet they take 10 minute long hot showers. Just another liberal environmentalist campaign to make you feel guilty about modern technology instead of enjoying it. Our city has wasted $50B on a light rail that serves almost no one, so I'm pretty sure we can afford some desalination plants if we ever have a drought.

Really have something against liberals? They're not letting you enjoy modern technology? Oh wait, who are the ones making the largest advancements in science and technology again?