Showering is a pretty small portion of my day. Generally I'm pretty wrapped up in the whole lather-rinse-repeat process with soap in my eyes and my mind is on the day ahead of me. Despite that, it surprises me that I only recently took the time to read my shower-head. Yeah, read my shower-head.

"Ten litres a minute?! That can't be right."

I went into the bathroom and checked again just now. Nine-point-five litres a minute is the exact figure. Either way, it's up to a hundred litres of water every time I shower. It's not like I'm whipped into a terrified tizzy by that revelation. It's just that it seems so unnecessary. I've been wondering to myself what portion of a ten minute shower requires running water. Initially it's practical to get wet when you hop in. Thereafter comes the soaping up. At that point the water is just running down the drain. Worse, it's actually counterproductive; washing away the soap you're trying to apply. There's the shampooing. Since you've already gotten your hair wet during the first minute in the shower, that doesn't require any more water. The washcloth scrubbing? Water doesn't need to be running for the abrasion process of the washcloth to work. Then we come to the rinse. Finally the running water is necessary again!

What do you think, less than thirty percent of a shower actually requires running water? I grant you that thirty litres is still a lot of water for each member of every household to use every shower. Seventy litres by each person though would be a stunning amount to save. I drink little else besides water most days and I still don't think I drink more than two litres on an average day. So if I could cut the wasted water from my shower consumption, thirty-five more people like me could be hydrated each day.

Living close to the Great Lakes I don't worry about water that much. Somehow I think of it as the sort of concern that, say, Australians might have better insight into. That may not be right but they've got deserts down there, it's just a guess. There is certainly no shortage of countries that would be appalled by the amount of water that we send right back into the treatment plant without having used it.

At the very least, the treatment plant which filters our waste water must use considerable energy. The pumps in buildings throughout the city that move shower-water from the water-heaters up the many floors to apartments, or even just from the basement to the main floors of houses, must collectively waste a lot of energy too, I suppose.

It's a seemingly small problem, granted, but I believe it has a small and simple solution.

You know when you're watching the shower scenes from M*A*S*H over and over again and... what? Anyway, when they shower on the show they have to pull a chain attached to the shower-head to make the water flow. It's a simple and effective way to maximize a limited water supply. You might have seen it at some campgrounds too. It's perfect for an army who cannot guarantee an abundance of water but also perfectly applicable to any resource-conscious society. If you don't want to sacrifice quite that much cushiness, it would be a simple matter to invent a pull-chain valve which slowly returns to the off position after about thirty seconds or a minute. Ample time for you to do most of the initial moistening or the final rinsing that your shower needs. You might have to pull the chain a second time to get all the soap out of your ears. Big whoop, pull the chain again and deal with it.

Unfortunately, on my wanders through hardware stores from Mom and Pop to big box, I've yet to see such a shower unit on the market. I'd love to hear from any of you out there who've seen such an item for sale.

As with any idea there are a few bugs to be addressed. The first concern that may come to mind is that of maintaining a constant water temperature if the water is only running for two or three minutes out of your ten minute shower. The solution, if it's really a problem for you, may lie in doing away with another energy guzzler out there: the water heater. Ah yes, the big tank in the basement that's almost always sucking up hydro to continually heat water that people use only sporadically. As many of you know it can now be replaced with a simple cube-looking device that heats the water as it passes through the pipe. It's another relatively simple solution that should be more ubiquitous. In fact I find it hard to believe that so many areas are phasing out the incandescent bulb before phasing out the water heater.

Now, that little block in the basement won't keep the water from cooling as it waits in the pipe leading to your shower heat so consider the possibility of having one installed coming into your bathroom. Would that be terribly complicated plumbing work? If there are contractors out there sniffing out a time controlled shower-head who could also let me know what sort of difficulties such an installation would present I'd love to hear from them.

There are certainly other minor problems that would arise from installing the type of shower I propose but they are negligible and mostly involve changing long-established absent-minded habits; the kind of habits that will have to change if we want to make any progress on the environment at all.

- Jason Gracey

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