Taking long showers can cause unnecessary wasting of water and electricity for heating the water, leading to an increase in your utility bills. Beyond this, however, there are many other environmental and health-related reasons why taking long showers is bad for the environment.
The environmental impact of daily showers
Water waste, using electricity, ocean-contaminating microbeads found in shower gels, not to mention the plastic containers of shampoo, conditioners, body scrubs and more means that every shower has an impact on the environment.
The average shower lasts about eight minutes. Since the average showerhead has a water flow of 2.1 gallons per minute, each shower uses more than 16 gallons of water! Across the United States, we use more than one trillion gallons of water each year just for showering.
In general, showering every other day or every few days is enough for most people. Keep in mind that showering twice a day or frequently taking hot or long showers can strip your skin of important oils. This can lead to dry, itchy skin.
A standard showerhead flows at a rate of 2.5 gallons per minute . This means that a ten-minute shower only uses 25 gallons of water. A full bath can use up to 50 gallons of water . Using these numbers, a shower will use less water in most cases.
Are You Using Water-Saving Showerheads? Older, regular showerheads typically use between 15-20 litres of water per minute. A 10-minute shower would average between 150-200 litres per day, 1,050-1,400 litres per week, and 5,475-7,300 litres per year.
If you have a low-flow showerhead installed, you can expect to use about two gallons of water per minute, equalling 20 gallons throughout a 10-minute shower. With a standard showerhead, around half a gallon more water will emerge each minute, so a 10-minute shower would use somewhere close to 25 gallons.
Great Britain has the lowest rate of showering per week, at 83 percent. However, the English do love their baths: they have the most baths out of every country, with 32 percent of people bathing each week. Germany comes at a far second, at just 20 percent.
Generally, she says, "you should be showering, bathing or cleansing yourself every two to three days." Though, if you're working out or engaging in an activity where you are sweating a lot, you may have to shower more often. The biggest problem that may stem from not showering enough?
This depends on the length of the shower taken and the type of head on the shower. The average shower duration is approximately 7 minutes and the average shower volume is approximately 55 litres.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that the best option for the environment is a quick shower. If the water is only running for 5 to 10 minutes, you're using less water and less electricity than it takes to fill the average bathtub.
In the United States, most people bathe daily but, in other countries, many people bathe only 2-3 times per week or less. Many times it can come down to habit and ritual, as daily showers can help people feel more awake, avoid body odor, relax tight muscles or simply because that's what they've been taught to do.
The oldest accountable daily ritual of bathing can be traced to the ancient Indians. They used elaborate practices for personal hygiene with three daily baths and washing. These are recorded in the works called grihya sutras which date back to 500 BCE and are in practice today in some communities.
Australians have the status of being one of the cleanest nations on the planet. 90 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men bathe or shower at least once daily according to a 2008 report by the SCA, a leading global hygiene company.
Traditionally, bathing is viewed to be a ritual of large cultural importance, although it has evolved into being less ritualistic and more of a common practice. Research by the Kantar World Panel, goes on to say that 85% of people shower per week in China and average 6 showers per week.
We must bathe at least once a day and we must do Wudu before our prayers. We should also wash and dry ourselves properly everytime we use the toilet and remember to wash and clean our hands. We know how easily germs spread from our very own hands to our bodies as well as to other people.
"If your skin tends not to be dry, you could extend it to every other day or so." If you take it from a certified germ expert, though, you can skip showering for as long as you wish.
The toilet
A dual flush cistern uses 3 litres for a half flush and 6 litres for a full flush. A single flush cistern uses 9 to 11 litres per flush.
If your home water outlets (i.e. taps and showers) can deliver over 15 litres of water per minute, this is considered good water pressure. Between 10 and 15 litres of water per minute is acceptable. Anything below this is considered poor.
Each person uses an average of 100,000 litres of water per year, which works out to 274 litres per day. If you take this information and apply it to an average Australian family household of two adults and two children, that works out to more than 30,000 litres each month.