This headline might seem a bit weird at first to some of you but bear with me. Every time I go camping I recognise the incredible value of flowing tap water. Wether it's about cooking your meal, prepare a tea, brushing your teeth, obvious things like taking a shower and even washing your hands and small things like rinsing your veggies before your prepare them. Water is at the centre of it. When you do all of these things at home, you barely think about how many liters of water you use or how long the tap has been running. But when you're out on the trail and you have a maximum of 2-3 liters with you, resource management and efficient water management becomes the real challenge. What is more important - drinking, water for cooking, showering or cosmetic uses like washing your face? Nothing changes your behaviour towards water so quickly and makes you realize the correct order of importance of the before mentioned uses once you have experience a shortage of water. Most of us live privileged life where we never had to worry about having to little water to survive, therefore I believe that being out in nature for a couple of days completely resets your standards and makes you appreciate "simple and basic" things which are essentially the most important. If you have made it this far and still follow my reasoning, good on you!
You might think where systemic change can come from one person going camping? Think about a large scale government subsidized outdoor education program, let's call it the "water challenge weekend". It doesn't require a lot of money going into this project and could save millions for cities and municipalities in a decreased water consumption for pointless waste like endless taps running while brushing your teeth etc. Going into the wild for even just one day would likely change the view of people in regard to what to appreciate in our homes and how to conserve resources better.