You might be surprised by how much water you waste while shaving–I was. I wanted to see how much water I actually send down the drain with a traditional wet shaving routine and compare it to how much I use while using RAZCLE and the ShaveAware Routine. Keep in mind that I already work hard to keep my water usage to a minimum, so my baseline is far less than the average person’s.
So, how much water do I really use shaving?
Traditional Wet Shaving Routine Water Use
Using a traditional wet shaving routine, during an average shave without RAZCLE, I used 128 oz. of water (or one gallon). I measured my use by removing the trap from the bottom of my sink and collecting all of the water that flowed through the drain into a container. I would not recommend doing this to track your own usage, unless you’re comfortable and experienced working on your own plumbing, or have a licensed plumber over to help out.
Impact of Shaving-Related Water Use
According to the United States Geological Survey, face shaving can take up to 1 gallon of water. If only 20 million people shave their face three days per week, that’s 60 million gallons. Over the course of a year, that’s 3.1 billion gallons–the size of a small reservoir!
The EPA also notes that up to 10 gallons of water per shave can be saved just by turning the tap off while shaving. The implication here is that some shavers use more than 10 gallons of water. Per shave. Suddenly that baseline of 60 million gallons looks more realistically like 100 million gallons or more per week.
ShaveAware Wet Shaving Routine Water Use
Using the same water capture method above, I performed the experiment with the ShaveAware routine and RAZCLE.
Total water used this time? 20 oz.
That’s 108 oz. less water per shave! I shave 6 days of the week, so: by saving 108 oz. per shave x 6 shaves per week x 52 weeks per year = 33,696 oz. When we divide by the 128 oz. of water in a gallon, that means I save approximately 263 gallons per year simply by ditching the traditional shaving method and using RAZCLE.
As you can see, these savings add up quickly, even for someone like me who is already very aware of their water usage. The amount of water savings soars to 308 gallons a year if we start from a base use of a more typical 1 gallon instead.
Again, this is for only a single person. Do this across a whole city and the effect of this small act on water conservation is enormous.
On top of the water savings, using RAZCLE regularly will help maintain and optimize the use of your blades. More good shaves out of each razor cartridge means you purchase less blades, saving you more money, while also lowering the amount of plastic waste going into our landfills. I’ll share more on plastic waste reduction later on.
Until next time,
Greg
Founder of ShaveAware
