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Water use
The average water consumption for people in the UK needs to come down as hotter summers increase the chance of drought.
"The EA said customers in England need to cut their water use by 2.5 billion litres a day by 2055 – down from an average of around 140 litres per person per day to 110 litres per day. "
I looked at our previous water bills. In summer, we use around 150L and in winter, significantly than that, but that's the total usage for three adults and a child who is with us for two days a week.
Which makes our individual water usage just under a third of the national average, and already within the target by a good margin. And that includes some water for topping up the pond and watering some of the plants.
We're on a water meter and pay about £170 per year for the household.
We've become very good over the years, at not using a lot of water.
LAUNDRY
A lot of people wear an item once, and automatically chuck it in the laundry (I was completely unaware of this until a woman told me that she washed her teenage son's jeans every day)
Me? If it isn't visibly dirty, and it doesn't smell when I sniff under the armpits, then it's back in the wardrobe, or wear for another day.
If you're selective in the fabrics you buy, you can dramatically reduce the need for laundry.
Linen is amazing. It really doesn't pick up body smells at all - that's because it naturally wicks moisture away from the body, in a way that synthetic fabrics can't.
I found this out while doing my English Civil War Reenactment. The bottom layer of clothing for women is always a linen smock. So, I made a linen smock. I washed it once, to soften the fabric a little, then -having been told that it softened very nicely with wear, started to wear it as a nightie. The most comfortable night garment I've ever worn. I kept on wearing it, every night, waiting for it to get smelly. It didn't. And the fabric now has a wonderful feel when you touch it (probably something to do with the natural oil in flax, but I don't know for sure)
Whereas if I wear something polyester based, it's often just one day's wear.
Cotton is very good as well - not quite so good as linen, but I can wear a cotton t-shirt as an under-layer and get quite a few days out of that before fails the sniff test.
What do you do to reduce your water consumption?
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Yeah, I'm astonished at people washing things after one wear too. I don't put clothes-I-have-just-worn back in the wardrobe, I hang them over the end of my bed, so that I know that they've been worn and may need to be checked before wearing again. Except undies and socks, they always go in the laundry basket after one wear.
I treat my garden with benign neglect most of the time; unless we ARE in a drought (in which case, water is likely to be rationed anyway). I don't water my plants; if they live they live, if they die then that's just natural selection, hmmm?
I have not done any calculations as to which method of washing a human or washing dishes uses less water, and I'm not likely to, since it would be too difficult for me to change my routines for those.
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Apparently the human wins out on dish-washing, but it isn't a massive win.
Short showers are basically the win on washing people. 4 minute max. There is an even more economical version which was widely used isometrically, which basically involves standing in a wide, shallow bowl of water and sponging yourself down.
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As a result I do try to leave at least a couple of days (during which people will probably presume I have washed them!) in between before attempting to wear the same thing again, which apart from any other considerations makes it more obvious if they have started to smell stale and need washing instead...
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Having said that, a couple of days off does no harm at all. Air drying can often remove smells on its own.
What kind of clothes do you prefer? I wonder if you share my taste....
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I dare say you're right and I'm being overly paranoid -- I don't remember the jeans-and-a-T-shirt brigade! I do remember the women who were wearing a bright orange patterned skirt and a pair of black contour-hugging cycling shorts respectively, but have no mental image of what they were wearing on their top halves at the time...
But I think people do look to see what I'm wearing every time I turn up, because they quite often remark on it. I used to get 'are you going on to a party?' on a regular basis, but I think it has dawned on everyone that I really do wear structured clothing, or at least clothing with buttons on, all the time, however old and shabby; I don't own a pair of jeans or trainers, and while I do own and very occasionally wear a polo-necked T-shirt, that is only because it came as a freebie with some very expensive waterproofs that I was purchasing about twenty years ago! Plain T-shirts or sweatshirts I never, ever wear; I like collars, thank you.
Oh yes -- I once managed successfully to get the reek of sweat out of a velvet jacket that I'd had to wear at a thoroughly overheated concert, and which still smelt after being dry-cleaned, simply by means of hanging it up inside-out outdoors on the washing line for days on end. After all, if you think about it, rags blowing around in the hedgerow don't smell of body odour, any more than whitened bones on the hillside; the fabric may eventually become threadbare and rot away, but any loose organic material has long since been consumed by ambient bacteria or whatever. The jacket that had been seemingly ruined went on to give another ten years or so of service before the lining became too rotten to be patched up any further and the collar and cuffs wore bare... and that was of course a second-hand garment in the first place, so I have no idea how old it was when it finally succumbed!
I'm currently busy trying to get a musty smell out of some second-hand cycling shorts that began to emit a distinct odour the first time I wore them in earnest (probably why they were originally given away, as they are otherwise in very good condition compared to my current worn-out ones). Unfortunately I've never actually owned cycling shorts with a chamois lining, as opposed to an foam pad, so I don't know what to expect them to smell like when clean -- but mildew is definitely not right :-(
I put them through a 30-degree wash and hung them out to dry for a day, but though they dried out they still didn't smell right. I left them out for a full 24 hours, which didn't do the job, and have just rubbed and rinsed some ordinary bar soap through them thoroughly by hand (as opposed to merely swishing them around in warm water and a bit of washing-machine powder for 45 minutes), and they currently smell less musty; we'll see how it goes once they have dried out again.
Of course hanging things out in strong sunshine for hours on end may have a hygenic effect -- they specifically suggest 'ultraviolet light exposure' for Americans who put their cycling shorts in the tumble dryer -- but inherently shortens the lifespan of the fabric as well. My clothes all fade and eventually rip apart across the shoulders/armholes, which I think is partly the strain of wear, partly the corrosive effect of human sweat, and partly accumulated sun damage. Certainly the faded colour is due to gradual sun damage.