Food and Water Conservation

When asked how many gallons of water he uses a day, Academic Counselor Drew Clinton guessed about 10. However, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the average person uses 80 to 100 gallons of water a day.

A recent focus group explored food and water conservation, but lacked knowledge about this issue. The three group members were asked to estimate the number of gallons of water they use daily.

“Gosh I don’t know, drinking, shower, probably what you think 2-3 gallons a day,” said Pete Lewis, learning specialist with the Office of Student-Athlete Academic Support. “That may be conservative, I don’t know.”

Water conservation is not thought of as a problem because many community members see it as a convenience.

“I think we don’t think of conserving often enough, and we just take for granted what we have,” Clinton said. “There is always water when we flip the switch.”

The focus group agreed that awareness is the first step to conservation.

“I think what we are doing here is a good starting point to make the university aware of how wasteful we are being, not only in the conservation of water, but food as well,” Lewis said. “Situations like we’re having here is the start to answering that.”

Another issue that demands awareness is food conservation. The Office of Campus Sustainability has claimed dining as one of their strategic areas for initiative spring 2010.

According to its Spring Preview newsletter, the office plans to explore ways to decrease the waste produced in dining and food preparation operations by enhancing recycling and exploring how to integrate composting. During the focus group for food and water conservation, participant Anne Rhodes, a learning specialist with the Office of Student-Athlete Academic Support, suggested composting as a solution to food waste.

“I think there is enough sunshine here that with the garden clippings, we can compost leftover food,” Rhodes said.

However, the group didn’t know enough about food conservation issues to fully develop any solutions and felt they needed to be more aware of the situations the community faces.

“I think it all starts with awareness, so the more you can get that word out at least you have people thinking about it,” Clinton said. “It is hard to break old habits, but it’s amazing how much recycling goes on now when 20 years ago, no one knew there was another way besides throwing stuff away.”

The Office of Campus Sustainability hosts lectures and outreach activities on campus to spread the word about sustainability projects and increase conservation efforts.

“It (conservation) can be done, but you have to talk about it and get the word out,” Clinton said. “I don’t know enough about it, and I know there are probably great solutions, but I don’t have the knowledge on how to conserve water and food.”

Ole Miss Food and Watet

Ole Miss Food and Water

There are a lot of things to consider when talking about food and water.

When eathing how often do we think about how much we get when we eat? What should be done with leftovers? How much water are we using a day? How can we conserve water? Although, many take food and water for granted, there are solutions.

A recent focus group at Ole Miss discussed food that gets thrown out and alternative procedures for using leftover food.

“Compost, that sounds like a reasonable solution,” said Drew Clinton, assistant director of academic support. “I think they could also probably sell smaller portions so that their won’t be so much that is wasted.”

He suggested that people people had the choice to buy a smaller portion of food, they might not buy a larger prition because they would not need it.

It is difficult for most people to imagine how much one person uses water a day. Water is harder to conserve than food.

People must conciously think about washing hands when using the bathroom, water the lawn, drinking water, and showering.

“I think it is more than 10 gallons,” said Anne Rhodes, a learning specialist at Ole Miss. “Between flushing toilets, dishwashers, doing laundry, showers, dishes, and watering your lawn, it’s over 10 gallons, but when I sit and think about it. I think its a lot more than 10 or 15 gallons, it’s up there.”

There are things the Oxford community can do to conserve water.

“I think it all starts with awareness,” Clinton said. “It’s hard to break old habits. However, if you get the community to buy into the problem, eventually we will get results; getting started is the hardest problem.”

The focus group agreed that conserving food and water is not just a community or university problem because it is a problem across the world. But there is a need to get started at the community level.

“It is going to have to become a community thing and they are going to have to have conversations like we are having here,” said Pete Lewis, a learning specialist with the Office of Student-Athlete Academic Support. “It’s goign to be hard to maintain conservation on a community level because people take so many of these things for granted.”