David Yang

My recent meal with friends became an unexpected meditation on gratitude and the hidden systems that bring food to our table. We all silenced our phone and prayed / showed thankfulness before eating. As we gave thanks, I found myself reflecting on the urban conveniences I often take for granted as a home cook: the instant spark of a gas stove, the clean water flowing from my tap to rinse vegetables, the refrigerated meat that I can easily take out and ready to use. This moment of mindfulness revealed how rarely I consider more luck behind the convenience in living in an urban household. The practice of eating mindfully wasn’t just spiritual, and I reckoned the networks that make modern cooking effortless. By choosing presence over haste, I didn’t just savor the food, and I had an opportunity to honor the invisible chain of sustenance that climate change threatens to unravel. The ritual left me wondering: what if every meal began with this awareness? Perhaps then, conservation would feel less like sacrifice and more like acknolwedging our fortune.

As I moved to my new apartment, the new faucet’s design makes it hard to tell if it’s fully closed (shown in the picture). the handle lacks clear resistance, so a slight turn can leave it barely dripping without me realizing. At first, I assumed the fixture was broken, but the real issue was my own forgetfulness, as I wasn’t double-checking. Since I’m a renter and can’t replace the faucet, I decided to make a conscious effort to pause and verify the handle’s position after each use, ensuring no water slips through. This small mental shift has nearly eliminated the wasted drips that once added up over days, and it seems like fixing my carelessness instead of the faucet is a more efficient way. It’s a reminder that sustainability isn’t just about going grandly into an overhaul. Sometimes, the most impactful fix is a change in mindset.

Installing a low-flow showerhead became a simple yet unique part in my journey to conserve both water and energy. The PBS documentary on the water-energy nexus made me realize that reducing water use doesn’t just save water, it also cuts electricity demand, since heating water accounts for nearly 20% of home energy use. This connection was new to me, but it motivated me to take action. My new apartment came in with two shower heads, while the smaller one has a much lower flow than the bigger one. Though I enjoyed the large flow of water from the big shower head, I switched to using the smaller one. Even though I am fortunate to have two shower heads in an easily accessible fashion, I realized that my actionable items as a renter is limited. This makes me ponder upon the intersection between the frameworks of Reduce and accessibility.

My EcoChallenge to explore water-conserving household tools began with a revelation about the water-energy nexus, a concept I first encountered in a PBS documentary that shifted my perspective on sustainability. The film revealed that saving electricity inherently conserves water, and this realization forced me to reevaluate my daily habits and the tools I use at home, especially as California faces worsening droughts and wildfires fueled by climate change. The documentary explained how energy production relies heavily on water, whether for cooling power plants or extracting fossil fuels.

As you could imagine, it is extremely frustrating when you find out you must fix a running toilet right before you move out. It began as a simple repair job, as we tried to protect our security deposit. I happened to come across the concept of toilet banks on Drawback Ecochallenge. According to the Water Footprint Calculator, “[some] toilets can use 5 to 7 gallons per flush, but low-flow models use as little as 1.6 gallons. It seems like this small fix saved nearly a gallon per flush, and that opened the window to how our daily conveniences silently consume a lot of water.