this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
203 points (92.1% liked)

Asklemmy

43959 readers
1149 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I don't mean what you use to chop down your feces, but an object that you realized only your family has and people would raise their eyebrows at. Best if said object has a sole purpose.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Bucket in the shower to collect run-off water for flushing? Thought it was standard until I learned people don't even bother turning the faucet off when brushing their teeth.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (5 children)

What I love so much about the whole “turning the water off when you brush your teeth” debate is how everyone is basically telling on themselves.

The ADA recommends brushing your teeth for two minutes. Do you think anybody sits there and lets the water wash down the drain for two whole minutes? Or more likely does everyone have terrible dental hygiene?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I lived with people who would have full political debates with a tooth brush in their mouth and the tap on.

Why does it matter how much I use? Agriculture uses 20 times more than I do!

Said after a tossing half their food away...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Bro unfortunately I do belive people would be careless enough to do that.

Had roommates that when they did dishes would keep the water running instead of filling up the sink. Didn't matter if it was even a few days worth of dishes.

I even mentioned to them about it, they said they just didn't want to put their hands in a sink full of dirty dish water.

People really do be that senseless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

People also have a dishwasher but prefer to do dishes by hand with the water running the whole time because they think the dishwasher wastes water and does a worse job. They don't bother to look up why the dishwasher does a worse job (it's always because they don't put any soap in the pre wash tray) and refuse to accept that they could be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

??? Why is it so crazy to imagine people let a tap run for two minutes?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because that is an absurdly long time to watch water run when you’re not using it for anything. I feel like “turn off the tap when brushing your teeth” would be inherently obvious to people brushing the full two minutes.

What’s more likely to me is people brush for about 15 seconds and don’t bother turning it off because it’s such a short period of time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I feel bad enough when I'm letting the tap run during dishes when it's taking me a second to scrub something lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I want a foot pedal for my kitchen sink so badly. I feel like it would save a lot of water and I'd never have to touch the sink with my gross hands I need to wash.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ditto! Why the fuck is this not just how sinks work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

We had these sinks in my elementary school bathroom and I've only seen them in one other public bathroom since. I'm really not sure why it isn't more common.

[–] thejodie 1 points 1 year ago

Get a touch-free faucet. It's awesome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Get one of those swiveling heads with a shutoff. Game changer for sure.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's really not that long. I leave it on both as I'm brushing, and as I'm swishing mouth wash around. About 3 and a half minutes total. It's not on purpose, it's just because I don't think to turn it off.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You’re wasting, proportionally, a fuck load of water

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I hope you will think twice about it from now on. Not trying to be a lesson giver really, it's just very important. The next wars are going to be fought over water and food. Where I live we have running water during 12hrs every three days, because of climate change and corruption (long story) so we have come to appreciate water, especially when it's drinkable (it isn't anymore, those 12hrs of running water are for other uses only).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I see you've never experienced a drought

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Or lived off grid where they had to pump their water, or used only rainwater harvesting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

water is precious

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Plus there is LITERALLY ZERO BENEFIT to leaving the water on. It's just pure waste. If I was learning to brush my teeth for the first time, turning off the water would have been the intuitive solution.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

For me at least, brushing teeth is highly uncomfortable and the brushing noise from inside my head makes it worse. Running water dampens the noise. I learned to turn off the tap most of the time but I leave it on for when I'm out of mental batteries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Our water bill is included in the rent, the amount we use doesn't affect it, so I could do that. I don't because why would I, but I could.

However, on a couple occasions I have opened just the hot water tap in the bathroom and let it run for 15 minutes, doors open, to steam up the air. It was winter, very cold, and air moisture content was like 15%, extremely dry.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That is mad. I am super conservative with the water i use but this all goes to a treatment plant

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s not about treatment, in a severe drought there are financial penalties for excessive water use, and this is one way avid gardeners can cope.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Tap water isn't drinkable here unfortunately

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, do we really need to flush with drinking water? It's literally drinking water straight into the toilet. 6l at that for "big business" and 4 for a single whizz. And that multiple times a day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I found myself thinking about that. I looked at the clean water on the toilet and thought, that's the exact same water, from the exact same source, that comes out of the kitchen faucet I use to drink and cook... What a fucking waste... (water is drinkable here ofc)

I sometimes see those eastern flushes with a tap on top that you can use to wash your hands or wtv and so the runoff water goes into the flush reservoir. I thought that was a great idea but, I think recently on lemmy someone asked about something that sounds like a good idea but isn't, and someone spoke about those toilet/sinks. I don't remember what the issues were but at the time I thought it made sense not to use it.

Still kinda hurts flushing perfectly good water down the drain :/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I had one when I lived in Japan. It filled the tank by running water out of a little faucet and the mini sink drained into the tank. If I recall the water stream was pretty small and low pressure. It was on a western style toilet so you had the toilet bowl in front of you in the way also. It’s been twenty years ago so my memory is a bit foggy but I remember not using it for much.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I actually really enjoy this idea. Thank you

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

My parents had a cow watering tub in the porch connected to the gutter for this purpose, but it was because the well dried up sometimes.