100 Ways to Reduce Your Impact

Step 29 Brooms before Hoses

Brooms before Hoses man! Using a broom to sweep sidewalks, driveways, and other walkways will save 150 gallons or more of water each time.

If you do it once a week, that is close to 600 gallons a month. All for really, an unnecessary use.

Comments

[cornbaque]

on average a 1/2 inch hose (like mine) uses 6.5-9 gallons per minute according to my city's website, so I would have to be cleaning my driveway for 20-25 minutes with a hose to use that much water. but if i had a 5/8 inch hose it'd be more, and my father used to hose off his driveway and sidewalk and it took him at least 15 minutes, before he moved on to the gutter in front of his house. no joke. i don't think the goal is to "bring about a society that bears no resemblance to one that brought us so much prosperity and growth", but to convince people to think before they act and try to be a little more aware of their personal impact. remember that we once had a lot of industrial prosperity that was tied to cruel labor practices, but that didn't make it okay to chain a woman to a sewing machine for 16 hours without a bathroom break. just because it brough prosperity in a different time, doesn't mean we have to continue in that fashion. cotton plantations were mighty prosperous back in the day, too...

[fwater]

"Using a broom to sweep sidewalks, driveways, and other walkways will save 150 gallons or more of water each time." Another thin-air statistic. Definitely uses less water, but 150 gallons? Partial fail.

[ClareBS]

If you have a water blaster, that uses a lot less water than straight from the tap. We are on tank water so wouldn't use our precious drinking water to clean the driveway but with a water blaster we wash the car.

[Natasha Dee]

Dude, troll much? Are you a natural born grouch, or did you practice? Lighten up!

[fwater]

No, not a troll at all, but after reviewing my own comments, I can see where it would have looked like that.  My intention was to point out where so many of these "save the earth" tips are mostly half-truths or just flat out wrong, but it came accross as me being a crotchety old man, alone in his basement, hunched over an old keybord pounding away in anger at those not aligned with his ideas.  I'm just a guy who is opposed to statistics pulled out of thin air and presented as factual, and then used as a tool of persuasion to change the behavior of Americans, not to save the environment but to bring about a society that bears no resemblance to one that brought us so much prosperity and growth.

[ronmaggi]

A broom is certainly better then those damned 2 stroke leaf blowers!!