Ever think about how your morning or evening bathroom shower ritual impacts the environment? We all love to start or end the day with a relaxing burst of water, but anyone who is environmentally aware should give some thought to how to minimize the effect that showering has on the environment.
The problems to think about involving showering revolve primarily around the water you use and the chemicals you employ to lather yourself every time you get into the bath tub. It turns out that people often use far more water than they need to, and also use soaps and shampoos that are harmful to the environment or even your health.
Here are three things you can do to take a more eco friendly shower:
1) Use a water saving shower head. Showering accounts for a big portion of the water we use in America. In fact the EPA estimates that 17% of all residential indoor water use goes to showering. That is the equivalent to 3.3 billion gallons every day of the year. If you stop to think about it, this water comes from delicate eco systems in the nation’s rivers, streams and lakes. The more we use, the more harm is caused–so why not use less? Water saving shower heads use 2.5 gallons or less per minute compared to older shower heads that use upwards of 5 gallons a minute. Better yet, they are cleverly constructed to disguise the fact you are using less water, meaning you get to enjoy your shower just as much as with an old head. All you have to do is screw off the old shower head, screw on a new one that is listed as water efficient, and you are well on your way to lowering the burden on the local reservoir.
2) Switch to an organic or natural shampoo. People are often unaware of the extent to which harmful chemicals are often found in regular shampoos. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a non-profit group of environmental and health organizations, recently released a study finding that many popular baby shampoos and bath products contain formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both of which are listed as possible cancer-causing agents. So not only do these nasty chemicals flow into the environment when we use these products, but we can potentially also harm our own health. Switching to a natural or an organic shampoo is simple and is much gentler on our health and the environment.
3) Use gentler soaps. The concerns about chemicals in shampoo apply equally to soap. Two additional complications are that the synthetic fragrances and anti-bacterial nature of many soaps today are detrimental to the environment. On the latter point, anti-bacterial soaps kill off good bacteria as well as bad, they do not discriminate. So when the lather from these soaps ends up in our bays and rivers it ends up doing a lot of harm to the Earth’s beneficial bacteria. Instead of using harsh soaps, consider better products like castile or vegetable based soaps, which contain more natural materials less likely to wreak environmental harm.
If you want to go green and make a difference, give some thought to the tried and true daily shower routine. You can have a relaxing shower every day, but do it in a way that minimizes your footprint on the environment. The Earth will thank you for it.