On Excess

Living in rural South Africa has made me incredibly aware of how much I wasted in America. Everything from food to paper to napkins to water. Most of all water. Since I became so aware of how much (or how little) I use here, I decided to keep track of the amount of water I use in any given day. Now while this doesn’t include some things like washing clothes, it is a tally of the water I use on most days of the week.

3 L = bathing (bucket bath)
.5 L = cooking breakfast, morning coffee, brushing my teeth
.5 L = drinking (I know, I should be drinking more water, but I drink tea and coffee throughout the day)
2 L = hand washing and cooking dinner
2 L = dishes

It totals 8 Liters which is less than 2.2 gallons. Around 2 gallons for nearly everything I do in a day… At home I’m sure I’ve wasted more water than that just in doing dishes BEFORE putting them into the dishwasher. It’s amazing how little water you use when you don’t have the option of leaving a sink running.

As far as trash goes, my area is rural so there is no trash pickup. Any trash is put into a metal trashcan in the backyard and burned once a week. I can tell you though, it is nowhere near the amount of trash my family takes to the curb once a week at home. (Sorry mom!)

Food is also not wasted, at least not in my family here. Every single thing is eaten unless it is way too spoiled to consume. Food rarely gets to that point, however, since my family eats it faster than it can rot.

I know it’s hard to do at home since everything is so easy to consume, but try to take a look at how much you actually use in a day and how much is wasted or thrown away. I know I consumed tremendously more than I would have ever thought without the stark comparison of my life in SA.