Pee in the shower to save water

by Jen (June 19, 2008)

With the cost of water going up in many regions and concerns about conserving our natural resources, there are lots of ways to save the water we use at home. This one might blow you away: you can save a minimum of 584 gallons of water per year per person in your household by just peeing in the shower once a day instead of the toilet.

Ew, isn’t that gross and smelly and dirty?

Not anymore so than peeing in the toilet. It all goes to the same place. The only difference is that the shower “flushes” it down with water that was going to be used anyway. A toilet flush uses water that could have been saved, and that’s where you’re going to save some water and money.

As with a toilet, you want to avoid splashing urine everywhere: men should aim for the drain, and women should squat close to the drain. It’ll all flush down as you shower. Also, urine is sterile unless you have an infection, so there’s nothing to be concerned about from a sanitary standpoint.

584 gallons? How about 2,920 gallons per year?

Your water savings will depend on how many people live in your home and how much water your toilets use. If you’re in the US and your toilet was built after 1994, it will use a maximum of 1.6 gallons. If it was built between 1982 and 1993, it’ll use 3.5 or less. So if you have a family of 5, using toilets built after 1994, you would save 2,920 gallons per year if everyone peed in the shower once a day.  If you have older toilets, the savings can be over 6,000 gallons a year, but at that point you would probably save more by buying some newer toilets or putting a weighted jug full of rocks in the tank of the ones you have, which will cause them to flush using less water.

Anytime you can make water serve a dual function, you’re conserving and saving yourself money.

Another great tip for saving with shower water: put a bucket in your shower to catch all that cold water that comes out while you wait for it to heat up. This water can be reused for other things. It’s really the same water that comes out of your kitchen sink, so you can use it for anything from watering your plants to making a pot of tea. But you may find that over time the bucket collects some sludge - yes, that means your pipes have crud in them. While that seems icky, it’s really just minerals naturally present in the water that have been left behind in the pipes over the years. If it grosses you out to think about it, reserve that water for use on plants, yards, car washes, or anything else where no one’s going to drink or eat it.

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