Motivation Sometimes a simple thing you do every day that ha

Motivation: Sometimes, a simple thing you do every day that has some resource consumption associated with it is hard to visualize when it is hidden within the infrastructure of our complicated industrial society. Water consumption is a classic example. Estimate how much water you flush (yes, when using a toilet) in an average year? At that rate, how long would it take to fill up an average swimming pool? What if it is a family of four, how long? How long for the population of the United States to fill up a swimming pool (assume every human in the US has the exact same flush rate)?

Solution

An average flush volume of toilet is 1.6 gallons (6 litres). The daily usage is 9.1 gallons (34.4 litres) per person per day. In a year single person uses 3321.5 gallons (12556 litres) in an average.

An average swimming pool with 375 cubic meters needed 375 000 liters. It takes 29.8 years to fill the swimming pool by a single person.

If a family of four uses 50224 liters per year, it needs 7.4 years to fill a swimming pool.

According to US population 324, 954,000, uses 1117841760 liters per day and 4080122424000 liters per year. It takes 28.98 seconds to fill one swimming pool by the total US population.