This article seems to exist in a weird middle ground of both going too far, and not going far enough.

Private bathing is a modern luxury few people would be willing to give up, but at the same time, should they realistically advocate for it, they need to go beyond just considering communal bathing as a single concept. They need to instead consider the cultural environment which surrounds it, and consider communal living as a practice.

While there are many arguments to be made against this (some by me, even), it's a lot easier to conceptualize people bathing together when they actually know each-other on a more intimate level, instead of just strangers getting naked and pouring water on one another.

So much focus on energy use with only a passing note on health and disease makes the entire essay useless: with no attempt to gauge how much more energy would be used if water was replaced more frequently (and how often would that need to be?), it makes for incomparable measures.

Running water was a boon for the health of the civilization[citation missing].

A surprisingly thought provoking article. A few thoughts I had:

- Is individual bathing really that bad on the environment, or should we be chasing other things? (looking at you, consumerism)

- If we use renewable energy sources, like the article suggests should be used for a modern bathhouse, then couldn't we just use that for individual baths and call it a day?

- Who has time for a multi-hour bath/shower each day in our modern society where productivity is everything? Even a few times a week is pushing it. Makes you feel like we're going backwards, where something as basic as bathing we are no longer "allowed" to enjoy (have your 4 minute shower and back to work!).

- No discussion of hygeine. This seems like a critical point which needs to be evaluated.

- I believe we do need many more small/medium community things in the spirit of a shared bathhouse. We are getting too individual and closed off in modern Western society.

>Should we bring back the public bathhouse for the sake of sustainability?

I do not know, but the article is very interesting.

In ancient times bath houses were disease incubators but a lot of socializing also occurred, almost like golf is (was) these days.

Also a lot of powerful people would make important decisions while socializing at a Bathhouses in old times. Curious how Bathhouses would play out these days due to that and the laws in modern society.

I always appreciate the low tech magazine articles when they arrive in my feed reader, but some are more realistic than others.

This one, while characteristically well researched and presented, runs up against entrenched cultural norms in most western societies. Personally, a nice hot shower in an en suite bathroom that is as opulent as one can afford is one of the last luxuries I'd give up.

> Modern bathing practices are a textbook example of an unsustainable lifestyle based on fossil fuels. Hot water production is the second largest energy use in many homes (after space heating and/or cooling), and much of it is used for bathing or showering. 2 The modern bathroom also uses a lot of water and adds extra energy use through space heating and waste-water treatment. Building and renovating bathrooms requires resources, too.

This is something that uses around 10% of our electricity production (it that) and 10% of our square footage. You'd cut that in half maybe.

If that's unsustainable then so are a massive number of other things so I'd like to see what the author thinks is a sustainable society. I'd guess if you cut all the ~5% waste sources you'd end up living in something akin to MegaCity One. And if all those 5% sources aren't unsustainable but this one is then why?

I get it, it's a click bait line which I fell for but that doesn't mean I have to like articles like this.

I think they gave up on finding technological solutions too quickly. I don't think energy consumption is going to go down easily; the path of least resistance is clearly going to be finding a way to deliver more power sustainably. We can replace old water heaters with heat pump water heaters; they do have disadvantages (many require a 240V circuit and obviously they can't function during a power outage unlike gas) but they work. We can continue to improve the electric grid with renewables and batteries. It's expensive and it's a challenge, but increasingly it's pretty obvious that it is the future.

Having a culture of public bath houses would be interesting, but I don't think it would be much more than a speed bump in terms of energy usage of society. We can and will find more things to spend energy on for the foreseeable future until it becomes untenable...

Bathing is no longer considered a luxury, and so will never be given up.

I'm always surprised at articles like this that point out every possible energy solution except nuclear. TerraPower, NuScale Power, X-energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, EDF Energ, etc. It's like these companies will never pass some impossible test based on fear from 1970s tech.

What's the deal with the 1990s-style dithering? For a moment I thought my machine had temporarily reverted to VGA and Windows 3.1.

Freaky...Speaking for myself, but as a guy born in the early 80's I can't think of a single more demeaning and foul situation in life than communually bathing and washing your booty hole around the "community" (and they had multiple genders in that photo)...In state prison, robocop, 80's gyms and military basic training this may be a way of life but to a millennial that's raising the cortisol. And how many boomers were more or less compromised by school gym teachers in communal showering situations? I've heard some horror stories.

> Modern bathing practices are a textbook example of an unsustainable lifestyle based on fossil fuels.

Come now, this is absolute nonsense.

I don't put chlorine in my bath at home, but it would absolutely be required in a public bath. Other health issues aside, I'm not sure this would be a net positive for the environment.