According to the Brazilian environmental organization SOS Mata Atlantica, a household that flushes its toilet one less time per day saves more than 1,100 gallons of water per year. So the organization has launched a TV ad campaign encouraging Brazilians to avoid a flush by peeing in the shower. The ad shows cartoons of everyone — from aliens to King Kong — urinating in the shower and ends with the slogan: “Pee in the shower! Save the Atlantic rainforest!” (Hmm: another Pareto improvement?) [%comments]
Conservation By Urination
TAGS: conservation, environment
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Been doing this for years, in addition to hewing to the old Sonoran Desert maxim: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
Jimmy is right, of course. But the pee-in-the-shower approach may help introduce his big-picture idea.
Gary O’Brien
Charlotte, NC
@Janet: our average temperature is 90°F. If you don’t shower daily here in Brasil, no perfume or deodorant can stop your B.O. from becoming _really_ foul.
Actually, since urine is sterile, there’s no reason not to pee several times in the toilet before flushing (in addition to peeing in the shower, if one needs to pee before showering but obviously peeing in the shower while one is not showering is a bad idea).
@Janet: (2) ah, and the meat from the grazing you mentioned is consumed almost completely by European and middle eastern countries and the US.
People are gonna ‘take time’ peeing in the shower – and how much water will they use – extra – while peeing? About the same as a toilet flush?
Hate to break it to you Janet, but this happens in the US too. Often.
My question is, does this add any time to the average shower length? If so, how much extra water does the extra shower time waste?
Also, as if baths weren’t wasteful enough, this widens the water use gap even further between showers and baths!
A final thought. In Europe, I’ve noticed a propensity to use the hand-held spray showers rather than the wall mounted ones found in the US. Is there any net water use difference between the two, on average? I find it takes much longer to shower using the hand-held ones, though that may just be because I’m not used to them.
Water scarcity is a local issue. Not eating meat that was raised using water in another area doesn’t save your city any water. Unless you happen to a rancher, the water is coming from different sources, and the water source used for livestock may not even be overtaxed.
I follow this advice already…been doing it for years. It would be naive to think a majority of males haven’t ever urinated in the shower. The commercial just brings to light the brilliance of the idea. It’s taking multi-tasking to the next level.
As for the Brazilian diet, when the President Lula’s goal is to guarantee at least one meal a day (even if it’s just rice and beans) for his countrymen, I don’t think the major concern is meat consumption.