Now that I have your attention, the answer is rather elementary my Dear Watson. (I recently read the complete Sherlock Holmes and was disappointed to learn that he only uttered that line once in all the stories!)

Everyone should have to live on a boat for a few months.  There can be no better way to become aware of your footprint than living aboard a small boat (not the kind with professional crewmembers either).

Water Usage: we carry 100 gallons of water. When you’re never sure where your next tank will come from you use water judiciously(I think that’s an appropriate adverb but since I know several judges and they’re almost universally tight asses, it’ll work well in this context) We filled up our tanks in La Paz…100 gallons lasted almost a month.  100 gallons= 25 days.  4 gallons per person per day, for drinking water, dishes, cleaning, cooking, washing food, and showers.  We wash dishes with salt water and then rinse with fresh.  Drinking water needs to be purified via our Steripen before drinking.  Showers are short and sweet: dribble a little water on, stop the flow, soap up, then rinse.  You can shower in 1.5 gallons of water.  Our toilet does use salt water to flush so that helps us a bunch, and we do not do laundry onboard so water use for washing clothes is not counted. (plenty of sailors DO their laundry aboard by washing in salt water, rinsing in fresh, and hanging it out to dry on their lifelines) The average American is estimated to use 80 gallons of water per person per day.  We use 2 each and we’re pretty liberal compared to some people.  (one couple we met had a 26′ boat and 14 gallos of water)

Electricity: Oblivion runs on a 12V DC system when we’re away from the dock and both a 12V and an AC/DC system when we’re at the dock.  Our ‘house’ bank of batteries consists of (4) 6V batteries wired to get 12 volts and 360 amps. Our actual useable amp hours is around 72, or in terms of watts, around 900.  This powers our electronics, such as radar, lights, water pump, bilge pumps, etc.  We can also convert DC to AC via our inverter, and occasionally we do that.  Up until recently we had to run our engine to turn our alternator to generate power to recharge our batteries, which takes about 2 to 3 hours every single day.  The average American uses 11,400 watts of electricity every single day.  If we were at home we’d use 22,000 watts.  Instead we’re using less than 1000.  Before Thane left he installed an Amp meter on our electrical panel in the companionway.  It shows in bright red LED numbers exactly how much electricity we’re using at any given minute.  When we’re sitting on anchor and a light is on, it shows 2 amps or less.  Refrigerator kicks on, it jumps to 8 amps.  Turn on the radar and it goes to 13.  Start the engine and it shows the actual amps going back into the batteries.  This single $150 device has opened up a new world for us…it’s made us aware of exactly how much electricity we’re using.  And the more we use, the more we’ve got to run our 30 year old engine to recoup the amp hours. Note: most sailors have solar panels that provide 100% of their daily needs w/o running their engines.

Suzie, our Isuzu Diesel Engine: Since we’ve been in Mexico we’ve put 500 hours on our engine.  At 2000 RPM’s we burn 1 gallon of diesel per hour.  We estimate we’ve used 450 gallons of diesel in 6 months, an average of about 3 gallons per day.  If we happen to be motoring some place, we can double dip: the engine’s running taking us somewhere and creating electricity at the same time.  More commonly, we’ve found ourselves sitting at anchor and having to run the engine for an hour in the morning and an hour around dinner.  (if we got rid of our refrigerator, like many sailors do, we could cut our electrical use by 75%) If everyone at home had to run a 60HP diesel engine 2 hours every day, as well as maintain that engine, they would cut back on their electrical usage drastically.  It’s a terribly expensive way to create a few electrons of electricity.  If you were at anchor all the time and ran your engine 2 hours every day for electricity, it would cost you about $250 month for the little bit of electricity we use.  (this includes engine depreciation, cost of oil changes, filters, and diesel fuel)  Convert that into the amount of electricity that a family of 5 would use every single day and your electric bill would be somewhere around $10,000 per month.  So the reason Americans don’t pay any attention to their electrical usage is not that they can’t cut back or do anything about it, but commercially produced electricity is just so damned cheap it’s not worth trying.

Garbage: The difference in the amount of garbage we produce when we’re in a marina vs. on anchor/at sea is staggering.  During our 3 weeks in the Sea of Cortez, we created 3 small bags of garbage.  In large part it’s due to the fact that we can throw certain kinds of waste overboard.  We always through organic waste over at sea, but our marina neighbors wouldn’t be too happy if the place was full of apple cores and avocado pits.  We’ve been at Marina Singlar Guaymas for 6 days now and have probably thrown away 5 bags so far.  The rules of the sea are too liberal when it comes to waste: until recently, you could throw anything you wanted overboard, provided it was 12 miles offshore (this included plastics, which could be discarded provided they were chopped up!) Nowadays, you can dump trash 3 miles offshore, provided it’s not plastic and that it doesn’t float.  At 12 miles, you can dump all trash except plastics provided they don’t float…and 25 miles out even floaters are OK.  If it’s going to be a while until we find a trash receptacle, we throw cans and bottles overboard.  They sink right away and the cans disintegrate fairly quickly.  Using the same rules Americans could cut down on probably 75% of their trash: cans and bottles are recyclable.  Organic waste can go to a compost heap.  Most plastics are recyclable.  There’s no excuse to have 5 cans of garbage every week.  In Mexico, the only thing that gets recycled is aluminum, although there are no receptacles for it.  (we usually sort it out and leave it outside the trash can so someone in need can easily grab them) As a result, we throw out an ungodly amount of garbage when were in marinas…not much we can do.

Propane: Our Force 10 stove is run by propane, as is our grill.  We have 2 tanks: one we refilled in La Paz in January, the other we filled in La Cruz in February.  It cost $40 to fill both and we’ve got about 60% left.  At this rate we’ll spend about $40 per year on fuel to cook with.  Our stovetop isn’t the most awesome thing in the world.  No gourmet chef would want it.  It doesn’t heat as evenly as you’d like and the burners are small…too small for most people.  But talk about energy efficient.

Since moving aboard Oblivion we’ve cut our electrical usage by about 95%.  We’ve cut our water usage by about 95%.  If we’d been at home we’d have probably used 1500 gallons of gas driving our cars to work and on trips.  We’ve used 400 gallons to travel AND create electricity.  We’ve cut our garbage output by probably 70%.  We don’t buy processed foods, which are full of chemicals and, purchased in the grocery store have a ridiculous amount of packaging. What’s happened to our overall environmental footprint since we’ve left? Hard to say, but I’d guess it’s at least 80% smaller than it was…maybe 90%.  And did I mention what it’s done for my stress level and blood pressure?