1554 Flushed

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. The old saying coined by a castaway floating at sea resonates in different ways today. Clean water is becoming the problem. Because we're flushing it all down the drain.
It's kind of sad. We're intermittently smart when it comes to water. 100 years ago, the inlet pipe for clean water in the city of Philadelphia was downstream from the outlet pipe for the sewage system.
Still, as late as 1955, the average rural person used only 10 gallons of water a day. We use 100 gallons per person today. Of course, that rural person had to hike it from his own well.
"Running water," meant he hurried.
The typical American flushes 18.5 gallons a day down the toilet. All of us together flush down 5.7 billion gallons a year.
All clean drinking water. That average rural person in 1955 would have basked in the luxury of 18.5 gallons of running water a day. And we're using it to dilute our excrement.
Too bad we don't use recycled purple pipe water in our toilets. Too big a cost for separate plumbing systems. At least so far. When clean water gets scarcer and prices higher, we'll see. And yet we already complain about high water bills, even though that 100 gallons a day costs us less than half what we pay for monthly cable or cell phone bills.
We do pay more, and often gladly. 10 gallons of tap water at home costs 3 cents. That's like getting 74 half-liter fancy bottled waters for less than a nickel. We pay 3,000 times that price at the store when we fork over $1.29.
If we don't go purple, everyday water will be that price too. Imagine emptying your 3-gallon toilet tank. That's more than 22.72 half liters. Or nearly 30 dollars.
Not feeling so flush anymore, are you?
America, ya gotta love it.