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This section
explores the different uses and disposal of water used both inside
and outside the home.
Household
Uses
 What
would your day be like without water? For starters, you couldn’t
brush your teeth or go to the bathroom. Most drinks would be gone,
which may be a bonus since you can’t use the bathroom! Forget
about fixing your favorite "instant" foods, there’s
no water. Dirty dishes, dirty clothes, dirty cars, and dirty kids
would stay that way, dirty. Starting to get the picture?
Every day,
we all rely on water for a wide variety of uses around the house,
inside and out. According to the EPA, you use 50 gallons of water
a day on average. Here's how it breaks down:
65% = bathroom, 15% = laundry room, 10% = kitchen, 10% = outdoors
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 Check
it out!
Chart
your day for all the different ways you use water. For example,
how much water do you use cooking, cleaning, and bathing?
Chart the water usage at your house. Are there ways to cut
consumption?
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Clean Water
In and Dirty Water Out
 No
matter what you’re going to do with it — shower, wash
dishes or do laundry — the water coming into your house is
supposed to be clean enough to drink. That is, of course, if you
get your water from a federally licensed water utility. The federal
government sets standards that all utilities must meet to ensure
a minimum level of safety. Some communities do more than the minimum
standards require. Others may barely meet the minimum. Regardless,
the regulations are supposed to make clean drinking water available
to everyone on a water utility system.
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Check
it out!
Not everyone gets his or her water from a utility. Many people
who live in rural areas drill their own wells. They bear the
burden of testing their water to ensure its quality.
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Inside
Your Home
 Once
you’ve used that clean water, it becomes wastewater.
If you use the water inside your house, it goes down the drain,
out of your house, and on to a wastewater reclamation
facility. These facilities treat water so that it’s safe
enough to return to the water cycle. Just what sort of stuff gets
treated? Sewage is of course the biggest concern. Beyond sewage,
just think of all the soaps and detergents and cleaners you use
around the house. All of that is in wastewater, and all of it needs
to considered for treatment.
Outside Your
Home
 The
water you use outside of your house is a much different story. That
water doesn’t go to a treatment facility. Some of it simply
evaporates,
leaving everything else behind. Or it can become surface runoff,
carrying waste with it as it eventually finds its way back into
surface water sources like rivers, lakes and streams. Another possibility:
it can infiltrate
the ground where it could move into groundwater sources.
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