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from the read-this-while-having-a-nice,-hot-cup-of-tea dept.
When you hear about businesses with a high environmental impact or activities with a high carbon footprint, you are probably more likely to imagine heavy machinery, engines and oil rather than hairdressing. Yet hairdressing, both as a sector and as an individual activity, can have a massive carbon footprint.
Hairdressing uses high levels of hot water, energy and chemicals. Similarly, in our homes, heating hot water is typically the most energy intensive activity. For the cost of a ten-minute shower that uses an electric immersion heater, you could leave a typical television on for 20 hours.
So while it helps to turn lights and appliances off, the real gains in terms of reducing energy usage are in slashing our use of hot water. A quarter of UK emissions are residential and, of those, the vast majority come from running hot water. The longer it runs and the hotter it is, the more energy intensive (and costly) it is.
Mostly the hot water used carries a high carbon footprint, but the chemicals in shampoo don't help either.
(Score: 5, Informative) by donkeyhotay on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:21PM
As a Navy veteran I can confirm this. Fresh water is a rationed commodity on a ship. In my day, the showers had "wands" with push buttons on them that released the water. You wet yourself, then lather up, then rinse. The water does not continuously run like a civilian shower. It's not nearly as satisfying as taking a normal shower, but it gets the job done and you get used to it. Aboard ship, being able to take a continuously-running shower is called taking a "Hollywood" shower.
Sometimes, if a ship is having trouble keeping up with the demand for fresh water, the crew is placed on water rationing. A limited amount of water is allowed for drinking only and no one takes a shower. Things can get a little "aromatic" if it goes on for more than a couple of days.