The Bucket Bath

I want to reduce my carbon footprint and I have been looking at the different ways I use energy. Some things I have no immediate choice about; if I want to visit family I have to drive, if I want to eat, I have to buy food that has traveled a fair bit. But there are other things I have a lot of choice about; how warm or cool to keep my house, how many lights I have on, or how long I spend in the shower.

Various websites that have suggestions for reducing your carbon footprint recommend taking a military shower; a shower that is about three minutes long and requires you to turn off the water after you get wet and then turn it on again when you want to rinse. But I must confess that I love being under a hot running shower. I struggle to reduce the time I take. And in my case, turning off the water after getting wet is not very practical; I have a slippery old two handled faucet and adjusting the water to the right temperature is tricky; I would take more time and water adjusting the temperature than I would in saving water.

The challenges and angst I have experienced in trying to reduce my carbon footprint is part of well documented phenomena known as the Jevon's Paradox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox I've learned that the modern convenience of running water makes it easy to be wasteful. I waste more water and quite possibly more energy than I would if I had to haul the water out by the bucket full, chop wood, and build a fire just to warm it up. But if I could somehow use the same water I would have used before I had the convenience of running hot and cold water, then I would be saving more energy as well as time than before I had the convenience.

When I was a kid I learned about washing up when you couldn't take a bath. I'm not talking about just a sponge bath where you wash your hands and face, I mean cleaning your whole body with just a wash cloth and a sink of water. I've used this technique to great advantage when I've been camping at more rustic sites. I'm not sure how many people know how to do this, so I thought I'd post about it.

A bucket bath requires about the least amount of energy I know of for getting clean. I use a mop bucket which holds about two gallons of water, which is about a quarter of the water used in a low flow three minute shower. http://cadlab6.mit.edu/2.009.wiki/anchor/index.php?title=Water_used_for_3-min_shower_with_low-flow_head And if I had an electric hot pot, I could warm my water even more efficiently than with the traditional hot water heater during the time it takes me to get ready to take a shower/bath. I use two wash clothes: one to stand on so I don't freeze my feet on the porcelain tub and the other to wash myself with. I also have a small bowl with which to dish water out of the bucket onto my head.

I start by cleaning my face with a wet soapy washcloth. Hairy parts work best if I get them wet and apply soap directly before scrubbing. Extra suds can be applied to other parts of the body. I use the washcloth to wipe and rinse. Not having a lot of water on my skin at any given time keeps me from getting too cold. Next I do my hair: first getting it wet by using the bowl to scoop water over my head and dripping back down into the bucket, sudsing and squeezing excess suds out into the tub before rinsing into the bucket with the bowl. Finally, I slowly dump the whole bucket of hot water over my head and savor the feeling of hot water pouring over my body. When the glorious rinse is done, I quickly sponge off as much water as I can with a washcloth, and squeeze out as much water as I can out of my hair before stepping out of the tub and getting a towel.
By taking a bucket bath I found that I save more than energy on hot water. I save time I might have spent lingering under water that just poured down the drain. My bathroom doesn't get as humid so I don't have to run a fan. My towel doesn't get as wet so it dries more quickly and doesn't need to be changed as often. And my tub doesn't get as dirty when I take bucket bath as when I take a shower so there's less cleaning that needs to be done.

By using a bucket I can exercise self control over the convenience of running hot and cold water and not fall prey to the Jevon's paradox. I can use the convenience of running hot and cold water without wasting more resources and time than my ancestors who didn't have the convenience. By using a bucket every time I bathe, I save at least sixty gallons of water from having to be processed at a waste treatment facility, a savings of 237.6 J, and a savings of 147.6 kJ of energy in not pumping the water out of the ground, and a whopping 26.9 million J saved in not heating water. Altogether I save approximately .25lbs of carbon from going into the atmosphere each day by taking a bucket bath. Over the course of a year that is 91.25lbs.

91 pounds of carbon may not be a lot considering all the other ways I am polluting, but 91 lbs is still 91 lbs -I don't think I can lift that much carbon. Saving 91lbs of carbon from going into the atmosphere didn't cost me a dime. In fact, it probably saves me quite a few because of all the energy saved. Saving 91lbs didn't cost me any time either. It probably saved me time because I didn't waste time wasting water or doing extra cleaning. I did not have to sacrifice any needs to save 91lbs either. I still got clean in relative comfort. And I did not sacrifice the pleasure of having water pour over me, I only limited my pleasure to two gallons. Now if everyone in the USA could save 91lbs a year by changing their bathing habits, we would save 27 billion lbs of carbon per year.