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The other day when I was at work I got to thinking about our
usage of water and our awareness or lack there on a daily basis. I work at the
gym in school and one of our faucets in the women’s locker room was broken and
there was a continual steam of water coming out of it and not like a drip
either this was a baby stream of water flowing out of this and when one of the
custodians passed by I asked her about it and she said it had been like that
for a little over an hour and no one had come in to fix it so I wondered if we
would have been put under more pressure to fix things like that if we paid the
bill. I remember when I lived on campus I was very reckless when it came to
turning off lights and conserving water and all of that and I know from my
experiences with my friends that still live on campus they are the same way.
Even though as students living on campus everything is already included in our
bill I would like you guys to stop and think for a second how much does that
affect our environment if we all continue this mentality because it is more
difficult to be aware of how much you are really using. Last year we had a
speaker come in to St. Mary’s to talk about this very subject and how our water
usage was affecting the surrounding communities. He was a farmer from a small
town outside of San Antonio and he was mentioning that because the demand on
our water supply is so great that towns like his were the ones that were being
deprived of water, and although I don’t
remember fully what his argument was he did talk about how it a big city like
San Antonio really has an impact on the rest of the counties surrounding this
area. A school like ours is already going to have a high demand for utilities
like that because of the amount of people that are here but I encourage you to
think like as if you were at home and your mom was getting mad at you for a
high bill, that makes you simply aware of how much you use. An even better way
to remember this is if you have ever been through a natural disaster when you
lose all sorts of running water because in that situation you realize how much
it is you really need and how much is just for luxury. I’m NOT saying go all out and not shower but
even if it’s just for a day take a look and see how much water you are using,
it might make you reevaluate some of your daily routines.
I think something as small as leaving a light on in a dorm room is something more people should really think about. Just because we don't have to pay the electricity bill doesn't mean we don't pay in a different way. Personally, I'm big on conserving energy and recycling just because it's not that hard to do and doesn't cause an inconvenience in my life, so I figure, why not?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what you are saying, especially with the idea of people really taking a look at how much water or other resources they waste. I believe if people just took one day to analyze how much resources they use, their life and usage of nonrenewable resources would be re-evaluated.
This is a good post. Conservation of our resources is critical. We need to take a few extra seconds to turn the faucet completely off or turn off the light switches. It's also very true that a lot of students don't take this stuff into consideration because their tuition is already set.It is a very difficult issue to solve so the students need to continuously be reminded that it is a waste of resources.
ReplyDeleteCathy, I completely agree with you. We, as guests of Earth, need to take care of the resources that are being provided. We have to think about the future generations. What if in the near future there is a shortage of resources? What will we do then? This is why we need to take matters into our own hands and CONSERVE! In order to create a change, we can take little steps. By little steps you can take less time in the shower, or even buy appliances that tend to use less water when washing.
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