Is it more of a water bill thing, or do you actually effect the water supply? (Long showers, dishwashers, etc)
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You impact the amount of water that’s been treated and ready for general use by humans. It’ll come back around eventually after a bunch of money is spent on treating it again.
Treated fresh water is not an easily renewable resource. The more the population grows, the less we will have to use if we don’t conserve it.
The water that the typical redditor typically wastes (letting the shower water run, for example) is water that has been treated. It’s been made to be as safe for human conception and personal use as possible. Water doesn’t naturally occur this way – public water systems use a specialized series of water treatment steps which take time, money, knowledge, and resources
Heaven forbid our water supply becomes compromised in some way, shape, or form, and we are someday unable to treat water as quickly & efficiently as we do in the present moment. Conserving safe tap water provided by public water treatment systems should be as encouraged as possible and absolutely not taken for granted.
EDIT: Phrasing. Fresh water IS a renewable resource – but it is important for us to attempt to conserve our treated fresh water.
Your local water treatment plant has only so much capacity to produce clean water. If everyone uses a lot, the city/county will have to build a bigger water treatment plant, which costs money. Tax money. Your tax money. That’s why they ask you not to waste water, so you don’t have to pay for a new, larger water treatment plant.
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It depends on where you live. I live in Ohio. Average rainfall where I live 45 inches per year. We have lake Erie to the north and the Ohio river to the south. The water I drink comes from wells in the Miami valley aquifer. It is high quality and requires almost no treatment. The biggest cost is pumping it. Taking a long shower does not really waste any resources where I live. Also my waste water goes into a septic system so there is no usage of resources there.
It depends on where you live. If you’re in a water scarce region or get your water from a deep well, then yes, you can.
In a water scarce region, you’re basically turning some % of the water you use into perspiration that will rain elsewhere. It’s not going away per se, but it is going somewhere you can’t reach.
If you have a deep aquifer well, you are most likely draining water from it faster than it is being replenished, meaning there will be less water in that well over time, and it will move to the surface.
If you live in most US cities, then you probably get your water from a river or lake. In that case, no, you can’t really waste water. At worst, you’re moving it from one river to a different one. Nothing you can do could even come close to impacting most water bodies like that. At worst, you’re wasting electricity.
The only people who need to worry about wasting water are farmers and ranchers. Annoyingly, the two groups who usually care about water wasting the last.
For certain areas that are more arid, like the American southwest, there is a limited amount of water that is available. The main source of water is the Colorado River, which no longer flows all the way to the Gulf of California because it is diverted for agricultural and domestic use. Looking at google earth, you can see the large amount that is diverted to California before it crosses to Mexico and also the agricultural lands in Mexico that use the remainder. If the sewer treatment system for your area discharges somewhere like the Ocean, then that water will not be reused and will be wasted. If it discharges to a stream with a downstream user, then it can be reused. For lawn irrigation, there will be a lot of water that will evaporate and leave the system that will be wasted.
Well from a physics standpoint matter is cyclical while energy use is one-way (can’t get it back). You COULD say water isn’t wasted.
But in more practical terms really it’s about the energy that goes into treating it. You letting the faucet run is “wasteful” because it isn’t “useful” and it puts a strain on resources it wouldn’t otherwise need to be.
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