EPA Wants to Monitor How Long Hotel Guests Spend in the Shower

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants hotels to monitor how much time its guests spend in the shower.

The agency is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to “modify their behavior.”

“Hotels consume a significant amount of water in the U.S. and around the world,” an EPA grant to the University of Tulsa reads. “Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests.”"

[Washington Free Beacon]

CLIPPER's Comments:

Orwell's main character in "1984", Winston Smith, would thoroughly understand this move by this EPA's Ministry of Plenty. Their newspeak claim of millions of gallons wasted is redolent of 1984's telescreen pronouncements from the Ministry of Truth.

To which I say: "Wasted"? What is wasted?  Should we not have the freedom to clean ourselves in whatever manner WE OURSELVES deem appropriate?  

Why should the U.S. Government proscribe our cleaning rituals?  

What is "the problem" being solved by this monitoring? The amount of water consumed in showering at hotels is 17.2 gal per shower per person according to the EPA. Their proposal to monitor hotel guests to try to reduce their consumption by 2 gal. per shower is a drop in the bucket (no pun intended) of total average daily consumer use (80 - 100 gal.).

If, as the EPA spokesperson claims "EPA is not monitoring how much time hotel guests spend in the shower", then why are they supporting this development?  They may not now be doing so, but once there is the capability, will they regulate by a "shower tax" the consumption of water by hotel guests?

I have a better idea.  The EPA's minions have determined that the average hotel guest uses 17.2 gallons of water per shower.  Their shower monitoring program hopes to reduce that consumption by about 10% - call that a reduction of 2 gallons per shower.  Since there are about 3 million nightly hotel guests in the entire U.S. and assuming that every one of them showers daily (?), that would amount to a savings of about 6 million gallons of water per day.  

Alternatively, we could save a whole lot of cost and headache by having the EPA require that just 3 million of the 40 million government (federal, state and local) full and part-time workers reduce their daily showers by 10% !  This would avoid Government interference in the private sector of hotels. Of course, that assumes that both of these cohorts, hotel guests and government employees, shower daily.  

Better yet ...... EPA ..... just get the hell out of controlling our daily lives via the Ministry of Truth !!!!!!!

In the spirit of full disclosure -  this government move is a boon to the company providing my retirement benefits.  There would likely be little reduction in soap or shampoo sales and most likely an increase in deodorant use.  What a win !!!!

[clipper]