Bucket bathing is the way!  I’ve been doing it for years and I’ve saved plenty on reduced electricity bills.

Why do we waste so much water in order to clean ourselves, when there is a perfectly reasonable highly efficient alternative?  And it’s very cheap, and it works!  The only drawback is that you have to have the guts to change your style of showering.  But if it means saving loads of water, electricity, and money, then why not at least try?

How to Do It

You don’t need a fancy shower head or other expensive crap, just a bucket, washcloth or cup, and a cake of soap.  You can probably just find a bucket  lying around your house.

1. Fill your bucket with water, and sit it in the shower cubicle.

2. Wet yourself using the cloth by soaking it and squeezing it out (Or you may wish to use a cup).  Start wetting yourself from the top of your body and work downwards.  This way, the water keeps wetting more parts of you on its way down.  This makes the process more efficient.

3. Soap up.

4. Rinse off using the procedure in step 2.  When you rinse from the top down, the soapy water has a mechanical action that can still help to flush more soap away.

5. Squeeze the water out of your cloth and let it dry.  Note:  Do not wring out your cloth, or it will not last as long.

That’s it!  No fancy shower heads or computer systems or paying a tradesman to install anything.  It’s just simple, reliable technology that does the job.

How I Came To Be a Bucket Bather

I used to stand in the shower until the hot water system went cold.  Every time!  I considered myself to be an environmentalist, and doing this was against my philosophy.  I had to change.  Then I came up with the idea of bucket bathing.  Because you have a limited amount of water, staying in there forever is just not an option.  I felt really strange the first time I did it, and not having the water pouring all over me was less enjoyable, but after four weeks of this, they felt as normal to me as if I’d been having them for my whole life.  So then I enjoyed my shower as much as anyone else, but I was using over 92% less than what other people use.  After a while, I improved my technique, and over time managed to reduce the water I needed per shower to only 3 litres!  I also noted that I was using far less soap.  I think that this is because I was not washing it off as I was trying to lather up.  And washing your hair is not an issue.  I have long hair, and I can easily wash it with 10 litres.

The next step was realising that I really only needed a hot water system for bathing.  So I turned my hot water system off, and used my electric jug for all of my hot water needs, (eg washing up).  After putting some boiling water in the bucket, I top it up with cold at the laundry tap.  This simple step has led to many substantial savings.  

1. Hot water systems are continually losing heat to the air, and electricity is intermittently needed to keep the water hot.  This is why it is recommended to turn it off when you go away on holidays.  Turning the system off saves the energy used for reheating.  

2. Also, when you turn on the hot tap, the cold water in the line is usually wasted down the drain until the hot comes through.  

3. When the hot water comes through it doesn’t come suddenly, but gradually, because it has to heat up the pipe as well.  This is energy wasted.  

4. Then, when you turn the tap off, the pipe is full of hot water that wastes all of its energy as it cools down.

5. In the shower, many litres of water can be wasted while adjusting the temperature.

6. Because the hot water system never gets used, it does not require maintenance, which consumes money and resources.

7. When I build my own house, I will not need to buy a hot water system or pay to have it installed.  And because I don’t use the taps in the shower, I do not have to pay for them or the piping, and their installation costs as well.  This can translate into thousands of dollars, and more resources saved.

8. In Summer, who needs a hot shower anyway?  I use just cold water.

Why it is an Appropriate Technology

The average person uses about 120 litres of water per shower.  Less if an efficient shower head is used.  However, the effective washing of a human body needs only a small fraction of this amount.  In many parts of Australia, renewable water is scarce.  It only makes sense that people employ systems that are as water efficient as possible, but not at the expense of other environmental issues.  

For example, a new shower head may save a lot of water in its lifetime, but it requires the production of steel, the generation of large amounts of electricity to manufacture, and the production and use of the systems of factories needed to support the factories that make the shower heads.  Not to mention the transport and maintenance involved in the operation of these systems.  All of the above consumes resources, creates pollution, and harms natural systems, which is funny when you consider that we just want to be clean.

The bucket bathing method is the most efficient means of bathing I know, except for standing in the rain which I have also tried!  (It’s the best!)  Bucket bathing saves loads more water than all but a fully clogged shower head, and because the technology is so simple, it is more practical for self sufficient lifestyles, and can be easily manufactured from locally sourced renewable materials (eg felt!) with a tiny fraction of the ecological footprint of conventional methods.

I feel great being able to need so little water.  I bet you have a bucket lying around at home.  Why not try it out?  What have you got to lose?  What have you got to gain?

Murray Allen, Mechanical Engineering student of USQ Toowoomba.