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Unpopular opinion warning! Getting people to save water is one of the simplest things in the world! Water is the cheapest material that people have access to.

Unpopular opinion warning! Getting people to save water is one of the simplest things in the world! Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. It is so cheap it has been devalued to the extreme. Fill a backyard pool? That'll be less than $100... Raise the price a little bit, all of a sudden people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect and have the same quality of life. Framing a scientific breakthrough as "saving money on water" is ridiculous. We already have a simple solution that works.

ARandomerDude 7y ago
> people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect These are mutually exclusive statements in this context.
- glofish 7y ago
  "any effect on their quality of life" - what I meant ... now does being motivated to fix a leaky toilet that otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to do count as a quality of life decrease?
  - sfsafs 7y ago
    How many people have leaky toilette that they can easily fix to lower the impact of higher fees? vs. How many people are living on the margins and that extra $10 represents the last meal to get to the end of the month?
    - glofish 7y ago
      You are derailing the discussion - we were talking about the practicality of covering toilets with a slick substance while touting the water-saving potential of said act. To which I stated that instead of covering the toilet with that slick substance we'd save more if we made water a little more costly to dissuade people from wasting water on a large scale. Now all of a sudden that got turned into some poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive ... quite the logical hyperjump ...
      - sfsafs 7y ago
        No, you dismissed a techno-industrial solution by proposing to raise water prices instead. I happen to agree that techno-industrial solutions are band-aids best addressed with social and self-growth. However, your proposed method of social change is more complicated that you let on. People on the margins are not some hypothetical "poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive" They are literally the set of marginal individuals, marginal as defined in Econ 201 (marginal rates, marginal profits ect). That is people who are not so poor that they are already skipping meals (or on food stamps), but they cannot save an extra $10/month either. At the end of the month the net change in their net value is zero. If we expand the set to include people and families who are in the red or in the black by about $50/month, that includes millions of Americans. And, for these people, $10/month of added water bills hurts. A lot. That's not to say raising prices is a bad idea. I happen to agree with it. I also happen to agree with raising gas taxes, levying road tolls, and, in general, attaching the externality cost to the first user as much as possible (I.e. the gas tax to transport the tomato you eat is paid by the shipping company whose job it is to find economic ways to ship). However, I'm under no delusions that this tax scheme is regressive. Should the repressiveness be addressed or dismissed is another question.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
As a general rule for necessities, if you want it to be cheap enough for the poor to be able to comfortably use what they need it has to be cheap enough for the rich to waste it. For water specifically, Private use is a drop in the bucket compared to commercial and agricultural use.
throwaway5752 7y ago
Water should be cheap, it's less expensive overall that society dealing with poor water sources (healthcare, developmental). There should be a two tier price system. Cheap up to a threshold, then expensive beyond that, like with mobile internet. And even then, tech to reduce waste is great and should be celebrated and is not mutually exclusive.
- glofish 7y ago
  I think saying here is toilet where your poop does not smear is a much better slogan.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
> Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. You don't live in the American South. I actually suspect you live near one of the Great Lakes where the water is dirt cheap. My water bill is higher than my Internet bill.
- war1025 7y ago
  Something I have wondered a couple times when this comes up: When people say "Water bill", do they mean solely water, or water + sewer? Where I live, the two are bundled, and the total bill is also higher than our internet bill. (~$100 for water vs $75 for internet) I live in Iowa, which doesn't have Great Lakes levels of water lying around, but we also have no shortage of the stuff.
  - JoshTriplett 7y ago
    Yes, they're often combined, on the basis that it's easier to measure water usage than sewer usage and the latter is presumed to be proportional to the former.
    - war1025 7y ago
      So when people say "my water bill is higher than $X", do they mean the combined bill? Does the town I live in just have abnormally high water prices for an area without water scarcity, or is water just artificially cheap in other places?
      - stevehawk 7y ago
        Regarding the former - Yes. It's basically something like this: line 1 - Water usage = X line 2 - Sewage usage = X * modifier My monthly water usage is usually something like $20 worth, but my "water bill" is usually around $60-$65 when combining water + sewage (2 adults, $ = USD).
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Some people (those who own wells) don't have real "water bills" at all and are actually referring to a portion of their electric bill corresponding to the well pump usage when they say "water bill". (Depending on well depth and usage patterns, this may or may not be a significant portion of the power bill.)
ping_pong 7y ago
It should be tiered, which it is but not to the degree that it sound. But really the problem is businesses and especially farmers growing non-essential crops, especially in California. The drought we experienced over the last several years was mainly exacerbated by farmers who were growing non-essential but expensive crops like almonds. I would rather the almond farmers go bankrupt than have them spend 1 gallon per almond in water. Businesses should pay more for water, and if it causes inflation in prices, maybe that's okay if the cost of almonds double. The amount of money that Nestle pays to bottle water for free is far too low. If it drives bottled water out of service because the costs are too high, I also think that's okay.
- samatman 7y ago
  Almonds are a red herring where California crops are concerned. Around half of California's agricultural water use goes to alfalfa, a fodder crop which may be grown anywhere. Israel uses subsurface drip irrigation to grow almonds, which is more than ten times as efficient as California's flood irrigation system. The problem is not inherent to the crop; it is political, and downstream (pun intended) of California's approach to water rights.

ARandomerDude 7y ago

> people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect These are mutually exclusive statements in this context.

glofish 7y ago
"any effect on their quality of life" - what I meant ... now does being motivated to fix a leaky toilet that otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to do count as a quality of life decrease?
- sfsafs 7y ago
  How many people have leaky toilette that they can easily fix to lower the impact of higher fees? vs. How many people are living on the margins and that extra $10 represents the last meal to get to the end of the month?
  - glofish 7y ago
    You are derailing the discussion - we were talking about the practicality of covering toilets with a slick substance while touting the water-saving potential of said act. To which I stated that instead of covering the toilet with that slick substance we'd save more if we made water a little more costly to dissuade people from wasting water on a large scale. Now all of a sudden that got turned into some poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive ... quite the logical hyperjump ...
    - sfsafs 7y ago
      No, you dismissed a techno-industrial solution by proposing to raise water prices instead. I happen to agree that techno-industrial solutions are band-aids best addressed with social and self-growth. However, your proposed method of social change is more complicated that you let on. People on the margins are not some hypothetical "poor family in an undisclosed location not being able to feed themselves because water is too expensive" They are literally the set of marginal individuals, marginal as defined in Econ 201 (marginal rates, marginal profits ect). That is people who are not so poor that they are already skipping meals (or on food stamps), but they cannot save an extra $10/month either. At the end of the month the net change in their net value is zero. If we expand the set to include people and families who are in the red or in the black by about $50/month, that includes millions of Americans. And, for these people, $10/month of added water bills hurts. A lot. That's not to say raising prices is a bad idea. I happen to agree with it. I also happen to agree with raising gas taxes, levying road tolls, and, in general, attaching the externality cost to the first user as much as possible (I.e. the gas tax to transport the tomato you eat is paid by the shipping company whose job it is to find economic ways to ship). However, I'm under no delusions that this tax scheme is regressive. Should the repressiveness be addressed or dismissed is another question.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

As a general rule for necessities, if you want it to be cheap enough for the poor to be able to comfortably use what they need it has to be cheap enough for the rich to waste it. For water specifically, Private use is a drop in the bucket compared to commercial and agricultural use.

throwaway5752 7y ago

Water should be cheap, it's less expensive overall that society dealing with poor water sources (healthcare, developmental). There should be a two tier price system. Cheap up to a threshold, then expensive beyond that, like with mobile internet. And even then, tech to reduce waste is great and should be celebrated and is not mutually exclusive.

glofish 7y ago
I think saying here is toilet where your poop does not smear is a much better slogan.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

> Water is the cheapest material that people have access to. You don't live in the American South. I actually suspect you live near one of the Great Lakes where the water is dirt cheap. My water bill is higher than my Internet bill.

war1025 7y ago
Something I have wondered a couple times when this comes up: When people say "Water bill", do they mean solely water, or water + sewer? Where I live, the two are bundled, and the total bill is also higher than our internet bill. (~$100 for water vs $75 for internet) I live in Iowa, which doesn't have Great Lakes levels of water lying around, but we also have no shortage of the stuff.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  Yes, they're often combined, on the basis that it's easier to measure water usage than sewer usage and the latter is presumed to be proportional to the former.
  - war1025 7y ago
    So when people say "my water bill is higher than $X", do they mean the combined bill? Does the town I live in just have abnormally high water prices for an area without water scarcity, or is water just artificially cheap in other places?
    - stevehawk 7y ago
      Regarding the former - Yes. It's basically something like this: line 1 - Water usage = X line 2 - Sewage usage = X * modifier My monthly water usage is usually something like $20 worth, but my "water bill" is usually around $60-$65 when combining water + sewage (2 adults, $ = USD).
- catalogia 7y ago
  Some people (those who own wells) don't have real "water bills" at all and are actually referring to a portion of their electric bill corresponding to the well pump usage when they say "water bill". (Depending on well depth and usage patterns, this may or may not be a significant portion of the power bill.)

ping_pong 7y ago

It should be tiered, which it is but not to the degree that it sound. But really the problem is businesses and especially farmers growing non-essential crops, especially in California. The drought we experienced over the last several years was mainly exacerbated by farmers who were growing non-essential but expensive crops like almonds. I would rather the almond farmers go bankrupt than have them spend 1 gallon per almond in water. Businesses should pay more for water, and if it causes inflation in prices, maybe that's okay if the cost of almonds double. The amount of money that Nestle pays to bottle water for free is far too low. If it drives bottled water out of service because the costs are too high, I also think that's okay.

samatman 7y ago
Almonds are a red herring where California crops are concerned. Around half of California's agricultural water use goes to alfalfa, a fodder crop which may be grown anywhere. Israel uses subsurface drip irrigation to grow almonds, which is more than ten times as efficient as California's flood irrigation system. The problem is not inherent to the crop; it is political, and downstream (pun intended) of California's approach to water rights.