By: Professor Will Heyniger | Publish Date: May 7th, 2026
Water and water access seems limitless to us everyday. We turn our faucets and shower handles and voila – out comes water! Yet, there are global-sized issues, including in the USA, about increasing periods of drought that have serious impacts. So, what can a person do to reduce their personal consumption of water, if they want to change at all?
In my Introduction to Environmental Science class, ENV*1000, we undertook a challenge to quantify how much water a typical student uses in their comings and goings on any given day. Additionally, I tasked the students to peer inwards and introspect themselves as to where they ‘stand’ on this issue, based on their experiences.
Kean University is a richly diverse campus and with that diversity, there is history. History of their personal journeys, whether as a segment of an immigrant or native originations that frames a psychological perspective on the value of water. Valuing a commodity (Water is woefully under-respected by many people) might be a conduit to elevating water from an expected resource to a level of respected resource, which has stressed American communities when the tap runs dry, yet some of our students already KNOW this value from personal experience.
The students are given a water measuring bag printed with a scale that is held under any water dispensing device (commonly a showerhead and faucet) collecting water for 5 seconds, after which the bag is pulled away and the water level in the bag is converted into a gallons per minute flow rate.
The second step is to record the amount of time spent using this water. When the two variables are multiplied, a generalized total gallon amount is revealed, and with some simple math, an average weekly gallon usage is generated.
Frequently, at this juncture, a student begins to see the volume of water that is either wasted or underutilized and the psychological impact of water wastage sinks in. How often does a person stand outside their shower waiting for the water to warm up to their ‘perfect’ temperature watching clean drinkable water drain away, in the quest for thermal satisfaction?
Additionally, students seek out their toilet water consumption per flush and calculate how many gallons of water are sometimes ‘wasted’ just to flush toilet paper after, for example, after blowing one’s nose.
Now, proper toilet usage is a separate matter, and I’m not promoting unhygienic practices, but just maybe the adage, ‘if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown flush it down,’ may need to be rediscovered to lower water consumption.
However, there have been advancements in fixture design that make lowering water wastage a reality:
- Dual flush toilets (1 button for urine, 1 button for #2’s) widely exist today at affordable price points. Even if they are a bit more expensive, the long-term savings frequently offset the short-term elevated toilet cost.
- Water-saving shower heads offer a familiar shower experience but use less water, by mixing in some air and altering water stream flow (and slightly restricting water flow) but is barely noticeable by the user. Again, costs are only slightly more than traditional non-water saving showerheads.
- Regarding faucets, water-saving aerators (the fancy name for them) are available that use similar tech associated with showerheads, but miniaturized. These aerators work; I installed them over 15 years ago and haven’t noticed a difference except in my lowered water bill.
So, water reduction technology has existed for quite some time, but let’s circle back to us, humans. Personal experience and psychology is a major factor in reducing water consumption. How we feel about water is a major component of how and why we value stuff. My students provide valuable insight and guidance on how people think, and it varies.
The responsibility pendulum swings all over the place, leading to interesting discussions amongst the group that swing from ‘I don’t care, I am too busy’ to ‘I don’t pay for it’ to thoughts of ‘I KNOW what’s it’s like to NOT have water, so my family respects it’, common among both populations, with a slight edge to immigrant groups. Even though this concept is tested by responses such as ‘I’ve experienced NOT having water where I once lived, but now that I have access to water, I would like to use some of it’ which isn’t wrong per se.
The question then becomes, how is a person convinced from a stance of wanting to use water, or not being responsible for paying for it, and other water consumptive habits to a stance that we have a collective commonality that it’s a precious exhaustive resource that is less accessible or not at all, when there is no usable water left.
In my activity reaction segment, I ask the students to delve deep introspectively and assess their stance on water. Why do they feel this way? How did they arrive at this juncture? What experiences shaped your water perceptions? How does your water consumption affect future decisions, whether you live at home now and/or future plans for self-living arrangements (their own homes they wish to own someday)? How does your family observe or respect water? Does your family discuss water usage?
Often with this, students respond with the frequent door banging from the water payers of the household – I remember my dad fatherly instructing my sister to recall that ‘water doesn’t grow on trees’, inferring that water is billed and costs money, just like electricity, food, and clothes. What were the developmental relationships that remained with you to get you to today and your water usage?
These are some questions and thoughts we all need to have every day internally in questing to answer if we respect water or not. If we do, then changing behavior isn’t challenging, but if your relationship with water consumption is higher than you’d prefer, why haven’t you changed? Or do you wish to change at all? And then, what experience would be needed to change behavior? All of these are complex, yet deeply personal, journeys in the quest to decide if we value water.
How do you perceive water? What camp do you reside in? Do you even have any thoughts about water? Maybe moving forward, you can investigate your personal water usage and consider that it’s a planetary resource, and every living entity on this planet requires water for life, no exemptions, no special cases. At the rate we’re going, water won’t be available forever.
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