Water Conservation, or a lack thereof

You know what really grinds my gears? Street cleaning. In Somerville, I hated street cleaning because it was clearly just a racket to raise revenue for the city - and because I never felt  like the streets were really all that clean.

In Paris, I hate street cleaning because it seems like a colossal waste of natural resources and manpower. Now, it's weird to associate Paris with "colossal waste of natural resources" when the double-flush toilet is standard.

Press the right half for small flushes, the left half for larger flushes. They just started installing these as "energy/water saving" devices at Harvard, but they've had them in Europe since right after the Bubonic Plague.

Also, our water heater is in our kitchen, it's fairly small, and the water only has to travel about 10 feet to get to the shower, two sinks, and the washing machine.

Efficient!

But otherwise, it seems like Paris wastes ridiculous amounts of water in what seems to be an inefficient effort to clean the streets. Waste Type #1: Flushing the gutters.

All around the city, spigots in the curb expel as much water as they can into the gutter. The spigots appear to be on timers such that wherever you go, one is always gushing. Daytime, nighttime, clear weather, heavy rain - it doesn't matter.

Frequently, a gross piece of old carpet or a rolled up item of clothing is strategically placed to direct the flow of water. Let me stress how gross this looks - they're trying to clean the streets, and they're making them grosser. Gross.

The water flows down the street, past the balayeur's pushcart. It's the balayeur's job to sweep up (balayer) objects caught in the stream, ostensibly so they don't reach a drain and clog the city's pipes. Note: with the exception of that one time at our door, the balayeur is usually nowhere to be seen. This means that the water does not need to be flowing. Turn off the water!!!

This is what the balayeurs look like. This is also what the stream of water looks like entering a drain - which seems to be clogging nicely with the bits of trash that the stream is supposed to remove from the street, and that the balayeurs are supposed to remove from the stream. I'm confused.

Waste Type #2: Sidewalk Powerwashing.

Similar to the metal thingies that hold the spigots that gush water everywhere, there are other metal thingies in the sidewalk - just next to the curb - that also gush water. Technically, they're the refill spots for the little trucks that carry the water that's used to powerwash the sidewalks. (Sounds like Chad Gadya, right?)

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of one of those refill spigots leaking, but trust me, they leak. Frequently. And when they're not leaking, they're spurting everywhere, kind of like this hose that Panda tried to plug:

As Obama is fond of saying, let me be clear. I like clean sidewalks. I like people whose job it is to clean sidewalks. I do not like stepping in poop. Sometimes, I can tell that a good powerwashing has removed poop from the sidewalk. But it seems like most water is not being used to clean stuff. And maybe they have more water here than they know what to do with, but I would hope they'd figure out how to use all that water in a more productive manner. Mini-hydroelectric plants in the gutters, anyone?

For the record, Panda is also anti-wasting water. Right, Panda?