Dr. Hasmukh & Nalini Shah -- New Philadelphia, OH

Ahimsa is the cardinal principle of all religions, and especially Jainism. Very strong emphasis is given to "Jiv Daya," that is avoiding any kind of suffering or killing of even one sensed living beings (Ekendriya Jivas). Let us raise our awareness and apply it in our daily life, this simple measure of 'water conservation.'

Water contains innumerable number of microscopic lives in each drop, and water by itself also is composed of innumerable number of water body particles, the Ekendriya Jivas. By conserving or minimizing the use of even one drop of water, we will be instrumental in saving billions & billions of lives. On the other hand, with little negligence, we will also be responsible for killing them. Let us focus on a few facts and figures about our daily water usage and how we can minimize violence to microscopic and water bodied life.

On the average, water use in typical single family home in USA, without any water conservation is about 74 gallons per person per day. Large bulk of water volume (about 43%) is used for flushing toilets. Showers, dish washing, bathing, laundry, etc. consume another 48%. Remaining 8 to 10% is used for drinking, cooking, and minor uses.

Old toilet tanks use 3.6 gallons per flush, and simply replacing them by new more efficient toilet-tanks, which use 1.6 gallons per flush, we can save 56% of water per flush. Just imagine how much water can be saved by a family of four in a single day.

Many shower heads put out about 5.3 gallons of water per minute. Average shower consumes 25 to 50 gallons of water per person. In this modern society, very few people take old fashioned bath with a bucket full of water. However, simply by replacing old shower heads with new low volume shower heads (most of them give out only 2.5 gallons per minute, without any noticeable loss of force), we will be conserving more than 50% of water. Each shower could save 10 to 30 gallons.

Simple acts like brushing teeth with running tap uses about 2 gallons of water, and this wastage can be minimized by simply using glass of water instead of the tap water.

There are many more ways to cut down use of water, and the readers can always come up with their intuition. Let us adopt them in our day-to-day life, and give "Pran-Daan" to innumerable one-sensed lives.

Live and Let Live.