Americans Now Use About 1.7 Trillion Gallons of Water Showering in a Year

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Americans take cleanliness seriously — to the point that the average American reports taking about 6 showers per week, helping fuel a multibillion-dollar body soap industry. But while we’re all for good hygiene (no one likes being stuck next to a foul-smelling person on a bus or plane), it’s worth pausing for a moment to think about just how much water all of this bathing consumes on a national scale.

Showers are usually the third largest use of water in the typical American home, accounting for around 17 percent of the water we use indoors. And according to Home Water Works, a website created by the Alliance for Water Efficiency, the average shower is 8.2 minutes and uses 17.2 gallons of water. Baths use even more water, about 35-50 gallons of water on average.

Knowing that the average American showers about 6 times per week (according to multiple surveys from Euromonitor, SCA, and others), that means the typical person uses 5,336.4 gallons of water showering each year. But here’s where it gets really scary. With an estimated population of 325.7 million according to the US Census Bureau, Americans as a whole use a total of 1.7 trillion gallons a year showering. That’s 33.6 billion gallons of water every week! And remember, this is a conservative estimate that doesn’t factor in those who take baths, which use 2-3 times more water. It’s hard to visualize just how much 1.7 trillion gallons of water really is, but let’s try to put that into perspective:

• It’s enough to fill 2.6 million Olympic swimming pools
• It’s enough to fill all the NFL and Division 1 college football stadiums more than 10 times over
• It’s more than the capacity of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee
• It’s more than 15% of the water needed to replenish California’s drought losses, according to NASA
• It’s enough to fulfill the water usage of New York City for nearly 5 years

 

Shower Water Usage by State

How much water do residents in your state use every year just running the shower? Check out the map above to see the biggest users.

Here’s the full data:

State	Gallons Used Showering Annually (in Billions, Rounded)
1. California	211
2. Texas	151
3. Florida	112
4. New York	106
5. Pennsylvania	68
6. Illinois	68
7. Ohio	62
8. Georgia	56
9. North Carolina	55
10. Michigan	53
11. New Jersey	48
12. Virginia	45
13. Washington	40
14. Arizona	37
15. Massachusetts	37
16. Tennessee	36
17. Indiana	36
18. Missouri	33
19. Maryland	32
20. Wisconsin	31
21. Colorado	30
22. Minnesota	30
23. South Carolina	27
24. Alabama	26
25. Louisiana	25
26. Kentucky	24
27. Oregon	22
28. Oklahoma	21
29. Connecticut	19
30. Iowa	17
31. Utah	17
32. Arkansas	16
33. Nevada	16
34. Mississippi	16
35. Kansas	16
36. New Mexico	11
37. Nebraska	10
38. West Virginia	10
39. Idaho	9
40. Hawaii	8
41. New Hampshire	7
42. Maine	7
43. Rhode Island	6
44. Montana	6
45. Delaware	5
46. South Dakota	5
47. North Dakota	4
48. Alaska	4
49. Vermont	3
50. Wyoming	3

 

Shower Water Usage in America’s Top Cities

America’s 20 biggest cities together use about 184 billion gallons of water annually just from showering. Here’s how much each city uses on its own:

City	Gallons Used Showering Annually (in Billions, Rounded)
New York City	46
Los Angeles	21.3
Chicago	14.5
Houston	12.3
Phoenix	8.7
Philadelphia	8.4
San Antonio	8.1
San Diego	7.6
Dallas	7.2
San Jose	5.5
Austin	5.1
Jacksonville	4.8
San Francisco	4.7
Columbus	4.7
Fort Worth	4.7
Indianapolis	4.6
Charlotte	4.6
Seattle	3.9
Denver	3.8
Washington, DC	3.7

How to Reduce Your Shower Water Usage

We live in a world where drought plagues us both close to home (California) and in many places far away (such as Ethiopia), and water scarcity issues are expected to worsen in the years to come. It’s important for everyone to consider their water footprint and to take steps to reduce it where possible. Even if you don’t live in an area where droughts are a serious concern, there’s still the fact that running a shower (especially a hot one) consumes energy. It takes energy to treat, deliver, and heat the water to your home, and once that water goes down your tub drain, it takes energy to treat it again before it can be reused. Plus, with water utility rates rising at over 3x the rate of inflation, you’ll want to save on your bill wherever possible. With that in mind, there are a few things we can all do to use less water in the shower:

• Use a low-flow showerhead. Regular showerheads use 2.5 gallons of water per minute, but a low-flow showerhead uses 2 gallons of water per minute or less. To put that into perspective, if everyone in the US switched to a low-flow showerhead, we’d save over 300 billion gallons of water each year from that alone.
• Spend less time in the shower. If you’re someone who likes a long, hot shower, try to cut back on the amount of time you spend in the shower. It’s the easiest and least expensive way to conserve water.
• Capture and reuse the cold water that comes out when waiting for the shower to warm up. By putting a bucket in the shower when you first turn it on, you can use the water you catch while waiting for it to warm up for other purposes, like watering your plants or cleaning tasks.

We’d love to know: How often do you shower every week? How long are your showers?