Thoughts on Conserving and the #4liters Water Challenge

When we moved from a big two bedroom apartment into a van (albeit a manly van), we had to reduce most of our life.  We are now really thoughtful on what items we buy, how to minimize our impact as we travel, and how we conserve resources like water since we now have to plan carefully in advance.   Especially, when heading into the backcountry to camp.

Our friend is the director of an amazing organization called DigDeep whose mission is help provide clean water to the almost 1 billion people on this planet who lack this right today.   They issue a challenge each year to go 24 hours using just 4Liters of water, so that you can feel what it is like to be water “poor” for a day.  Since we think about our water usage a lot (we almost ran out during our 4 days on the white rim trail), we took up this challenge and donated to their cause.  Even for us, without a shower/dishwasher/plumbing, 4 liters was a challenge.  We were camping out in Escalante UT backcountry, and just barely got through dishes 🙂

We encourage everyone to give the 4Liters challenge a shot in the next week; it will change the way you think about water usage. Most of us use over 400 liters of water per day!!  Note, we’ve gotten that down need about 10L per day, but we often stop at campgrounds where we take cherished long hot showers:)

Photos from our challenge:

[pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-s3G-qjjsmKU/VFANGsJVX7I/AAAAAAAApFE/-OBTA9eG8dc/s144-c-o/IMG_8307.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/115263927216347870948/DigDeepOrg4LitersChallenge#6075370305903484850″ caption=”What #4Liters looks like for the DigDeep.org #4Liters Challenge” type=”image” alt=”IMG_8307.JPG” ] [pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-b32huKTR-Iw/VFANKScbkeI/AAAAAAAApFE/1h7xmttjSrg/s144-c-o/IMG_8337.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/115263927216347870948/DigDeepOrg4LitersChallenge#6075370367723737570″ caption=”Camping in Escalante, UT and doing the #4Liters challenge” type=”image” alt=”IMG_8337.jpg” ] [pe2-image src=”http://lh6.ggpht.com/-lkBknDdWOs4/VFANKEIFt7I/AAAAAAAApFE/gP__NoXkn2k/s144-c-o/IMG_1367.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/115263927216347870948/DigDeepOrg4LitersChallenge#6075370363880322994″ caption=”Washing dishes with just 2 liters for the DigDeep #4Liters challenge – using bins really helps conserve! ” type=”image” alt=”IMG_1367.JPG” ]

So please take a moment and consider challenging yourself or donating a small amount to this cause.  Every dollar helps in providing clean water to those in need, as well as educating communities on water conservation.