Showers are big water wasters.  According to the Washington Post, about twenty percent of a shower is lost and every minute wasted is equivalent to 2.5 gallons of water.  That is a lot of water.  Most showers take a while to warm up so many people leave them running while they go and do other chores.  People brush their teeth, make breakfast, and do other activities all while the shower is running, usually already warm way before the activities are over.  If the shower takes only two minutes to heat up and for every minute wasted 2.5 gallons of water goes down the drain, 5 gallons have just been wasted.

A good way to save a lot of this water is to keep a bucket under the shower head while it is left running until warm.  Not only will this let people continue to save time by doing other chores while the shower runs, but it will also help save gallons and gallons of water.  This saved water can then be used to water plants which saves even more water.  In the long run, not only will this method saves many gallons of water, but will lower the electricity bill which will al so save money.  My family and I use this method and found that it really helps.  Doing this was an eye opener to how much water is wasted daily and how much resources we actually use.

Hello Erika!  I agree with you that showers are huge water wasters.   Unfortunately, I will admit that when I wrote in the length of my showers my carbon footprint greatly increased.  I take roughly 10 to 15-minute showers, most of the shower is just me sitting in the hot water relaxing.  I am currently trying to decrease the time I take showers.  I really appreciated your idea of saving water by placing a bucket under the shower head and using that water for other uses such as water plants.  This would be really useful for my family especially during the colder winter season when it takes a long time for the water to become heated.  I will try to set up something like this in my shower.

Erika, thank you for sharing your method of saving water while showering. I thought your method was really helpful. Besides using a bucket to save water, I think that you could also change your shower head to one that is water efficient or you could set a timer for your showering period.
In addition to showers, I think that gardening hoses and sprinklers could also be cutback in order to live more sustainably. Personally, my gardening hose is always leaking water when we use it to water the plants and it is cumbersome. For the sprinklers, you could set it at a certain time and limit the number of times that you use it.

I really believe that one of the sources of our excessive water usage is due to the culture in America. In other countries, it is common to shower every other or every three days. Some even shower once a week! I think if American's realized this and changed their habits, we would be able to save a massive amount of water. Additionally, showering dries out skin and habits like shampooing many times a week damages hair... so I think it would be beneficial to our nation/world if Americans changed their ways of water usage.

[Tiffany] Thank you for your alternative methods for saving water.  California is currently in a drought so anything to save water will really help.

I find this very eye opening since I used to take very long showers but recently I take only 10-15 minute showers. I had no idea that we used so much water for showers. The next time I take a shower I will try your bucket under the shower head idea in order to save water.