You should really be peeing in the shower — here’s why

All, right. HEAR US OUT. We know that peeing in the shower is somewhat frowned upon as an unsanitary (and taboo) secret habit, but math tells us that skipping the extra trip to the toilet and just urinating while you’re bathing could actually be an effective water-conservation technique.

From IFLScience, we apparently use A LOT of water peeing every day:

“An average flush for a modern, Western-style toilet uses 6 liters (1.6 gallons) of water, and the average adult pees about seven times every 24 hours. That means that each day of weeing takes 42 liters (11.1 gallons) of toilet water to flush away. Assuming that people urinate the same way every single day, this means in just one year, the average person uses 15,330 liters (4,050 gallons) of toilet water.”

They, then, calculated how much water would be saved by just skipping one of those toilet flushes.

“In just one year, you’d save 2,190 liters (579 gallons) of toilet water. Extrapolating this to the entire US population, that’s 699 billion liters (185 billion gallons) of water saved.”

WHAT?! That’s insane.

We learned not too long ago that as much as 61 percent of the U.S. population pees in the shower sometimes anyway, so it’s not like anyone can judge you too harshly for it.

And, furthermore, some scientists have said that it’s not even all that icky:

From TODAY, “Unless you have an infection, urine is sterile and nontoxic. Proponents of ‘urine therapy’ even believe it can help treat athlete’s foot.”

And, besides, if you’re saving the planet, who cares what anyone thinks? Just, maybe, clean your shower more frequently.