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maronato 11 hours ago

And uses orders of magnitude more water

TeMPOraL 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is that a problem though? The other day I got a whole lecture on HN, complete with math, proving that keeping the water running entire time while showering isn't meaningfully wasteful... I still can't believe it on an emotional level, but the math checks out...

bayindirh 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A nominal water aerator limits water around 5L-6L/min levels. For every minute I don't use the water, I spend approximately two full kettles of water.

With every 5L of water I can

    - Cook 4 servings (~400 grams) of pasta.
    - Brew 5L of tea/coffee
    - Water all the plants at home two times.
    - Possibly wash most of my handwash-only dishes in one go.
    - etc.
So it's not not meaningfully wasteful. However, I can't turn off the water in the winter, because I feel very cold otherwise. However, this doesn't mean I don't waste any water or happy about what I'm doing. My only (half) relief is this water is somehow processed and reused by city for other needs, at least one more time.
eek2121 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Water is by far the most abundant resource on the planet (70+% of earth is water), and we have methods to remove salt and contaminants from almost all of it. We can even turn urine into drinking water.

I wouldn’t worry about wasting it. We’ll die from something else long before water becomes an issue.

pantalaimon 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The water is cheap and plentiful, what's wasteful is heating the water and throwing that away.

bayindirh 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The maps, surveys and projections say otherwise, but of course you're free to believe what you believe.

TeMPOraL 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That's the thing, dollars are usually a better indicator, unless something somewhere is burning money to prevent prices from reflecting real scarcity.

bayindirh 6 hours ago | parent [-]

We're drinking one of the cheapest drinking water in the world, but this doesn't change the reality of sinkholes appearing where we deplete the water in our country.

So, the prices might not be rising that quickly for now, but sinkholes are giving us the warning.

Prices don't always point correctly, esp. when there are other economic and socioeconomic factors at play.

eru 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, even if the city doesn't re-use the water, it doesn't just disappear.

bayindirh 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, but getting rid of chemicals and returning it to a non-poisonous state for the nature is a big plus.

You can't dump everything to the soil and say "that's your problem now, nature. Cope!".

shepherdjerred an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> You can't dump everything to the soil and say "that's your problem now, nature. Cope!".

Nature couldn't care less. Nature works on much larger timescales than humans. It's the humans that are impacted.

Just like climate change, plastic, and all other environmental issues -- humans are paying (or will pay) the price, not nature.

eru 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, I mean when you are 'wasting water' you are mostly wasting the effort it takes to clean the water. Not the water itself.

As opposed to eg 'wasting petrol', where the petrol really is gone afterwards. At least it has been chemically transformed.

distances 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Was that about water, or about energy spent on heating the water? My gut feeling is that keeping the water running would roughly double the amount of water, so double the energy.

eru 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, unless you take cold showers.

eru 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's meaningfully wasteful depends entirely where and when you are, and how plentiful water is locally at the moment.

bayindirh 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't think so. Just because you're not in a water-stressed place doesn't make you eligible to keep taps open 24/7.

This mentality is what brought us to today.

eru 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Who is 'us' and what do you mean by 'today'? And what do you mean by 'eligible'?

In most places I've been to, you just pay your water bill, and then you can leave your taps running.

It's about as productive as buying bread just to toss it in the trash, of course.

bayindirh 8 hours ago | parent [-]

us: the humanity in general, today: the state of world water stress level [0], [1], eligible: the correctness of the thing you are doing regardless of the legality of the thing you're doing.

IOW, "I pay the bill, now get off my lawn" is something you can do. But should you really do it, just because you can do it?

[0]: https://www.wri.org/data/water-stress-country (This is decade old, we're worse now)

[1]: https://riskfilter.org/water/explore/map

If you think you can do whatever you want regardless of the things you're causing, then we're on a completely different page, and continuing this little chat has no point. We can't converge and agree on a point.

MrDrMcCoy 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Link?

tobyhinloopen 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It doesn’t use any water. It just makes the water dirtier.

maronato 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

And it doesn’t use any electricity either. It just moves electrons around.