.0013 is the cost of 16 ounces, or the price of a bottle of water from your tap, which includes both your water and sewer charges. Compare this to a 16 oz bottle of water at any local convenience store which costs a whopping $2+. Did you know that $2 would buy you about 200 gallons of water at home?!
Since today is World Water Day, I thought it might be nice to take a brief look at water in Arlington. Often people complain about the rising cost of water and sewer rates in Arlington, I find this interesting. While water rates are higher than they have historically been, they certainly aren't unreasonable. We have simply become accostomed to incredibly affordable clean drinking water. Heck, I would dare to say that our water should cost at least twice the current price we pay for it.
Faucet Aerators: These little contraptions reduce the flow from 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm). You can get aerators that reduce the flow down to .5 gpm, but 1-1.5 gpm is hardly noticeable from conventional flows. These cost about $1 and have a payback period of 90 days or less!
How is it that we are willing to pay $4 for a latte, $2 for a bottle of water, or $5 for a beer - but when it comes to paying 1ยข cent per gallon for water at home people get upset? In fact, many people pay more at the bar in one night, for cable television for 2 weeks, or their cell phone bill in a month than their Arlington County water bill.
Water is a key element of life. Anyone could live a day without television or a cell phone, but tap water is something most take for granted and it's incredibly cheap for such a safe & reliable resource.
There are differing claims that tap water isn't as safe, while others claim that youth today are suffering from diminished dental hygiene because they have had too much bottled water which does not contain fluoride. I am not going to venture into the health of our water, I'll let you read our Water Quality report and make your own judgement. Overall, we have one of the most reliable, safe, and cheap drinking water sources in the world.
Enough rambling and boasting about how cheap or safe our water is. How about we look at some cool technologies that are out there today that you could install to save money and reduce the flow.
These are my top 4 technologies that work:
Waterless Urinals - These have come a long way from the initial models which were smelly and poorly designed. Waterless urinals save 40,000 gallons of water a year compared to conventional urinals. That's a savings of $418 a year at current water & sewer rates. Some waterless urinals even come in fun designs such as this urinal that caught my eye in Paris last year.
Faucet Aerators: These little contraptions reduce the flow from 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm). You can get aerators that reduce the flow down to .5 gpm, but 1-1.5 gpm is hardly noticeable from conventional flows. These cost about $1 and have a payback period of 90 days or less!
FloWise Showerhead: There are many new low-flow shower heads out there, and I've tried dozens over the years. The FloWise is the best I've found. It has 3 spray types and flow rates from 1.5 gpm-2.5 gpm. Every time you turn the water off, it defaults back to the 1.5 gpm setting. That's smart!
Rain Barrels: These aren't new but they do help reduce the storm water rush and associated watershed issues that our region struggles with. Check out Arlington's Rain Barrel program to make your own for less than $60!
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