The other day, I replaced the washers on the hot and cold taps of a laundry tub. They were wearing out, they needed replacing.
Anyone might think that was a water conservation measure. After all, when I was growing up there was considerable attention being paid to dripping taps and such. It is super easy to find huge claims of water waste from a dripping tap.
And here’s the thing. I am not negligent, so the tap was not dripping much. But, in order to replace the washers I had to turn off the water supply, and drain the pipes. In order to repressurize the system I had to run all the hot and cold taps to purge the air. In doing so, I certainly flushed more water down the drain than the tap would have dripped over some very long period.
But I replaced the washers, because they needed to be replaced. Not to immediately conserve water. In fact the replacement wasted quite a few litres.
So many of our affectations of environmentalism are like this. We pretend that we are saving a penny when we are spending a dollar. It would be more effective if we actually took the logistical steps we know we should to actually move closer to sustainability.
