The water that comes out of typical household kitchen and bathroom faucets accounts for over 10,000 gallons of water a year per household, and much of this is wasted. Standard bathroom faucet aerators allow water to pass through at the rate of 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm), and many older faucets without aerators allow between three and seven gpm. UCSB currently uses 250 million gallons of water a year—just under 1 million gallons per working day—and a new Aerator Retrofit Program is now in place to address potential waste of this increasingly precious resource.
The UCSB student-funded Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) recently awarded the Program for the Assessment and Certification for the Environment and Sustainability (PACES) and the Department of Geography a grant to reduce campus water use by purchasing and installing 0.5 gpm aerators in faucets in selected buildings; compared to older aerators which allow 2.2 gpm, the new aerators will achieve a 77% reduction in water flow and also save energy in the process.
Jeff Brydon, Student Coordinator for PACES and a Senior Environmental Studies BS major, provided the following details about the project:
“With funding from The Green Initiative Fund, PACES was able to orchestrate the replacement of 245 aerators in 12 Student Affairs buildings. PACES interns wrote the TGIF grant and completed water audits in buildings such as HSSB, LSB, and Kohn Hall which determined what kinds of aerators to order and how many of each. The new aerators cost around $15 each, so the total cost of the retrofit was almost $4,000. This simple upgrade will not only save an estimated 600,000 gallons of water each year but will also save UCSB $3,450 every year. This means the investment will pay itself off in just over one year!
The part I played was completing water audits in 10 buildings. By photographing hundreds of faucets and compiling the data, I determined how many of each brand of aerator to order and then gave the data to the maintenance people. I also organized a water conservation week, called “Water We Doing” week, where myself and several volunteers educated people about general water issues by placing signs along the bike paths. We also set up a booth at the Arbor with trivia about water issues and games to get people involved. I am currently working on the poster for the Aerator Project with PACES interns, Garret Smith and Colin Twohig.”
