Conserving water has never been so important to our planet. Cutting back on water usage doesn’t only help conserve a valuable resource, but it will also lower your utility bill… Talk about a win-win situation!
If you’re looking for some easy ways to help shrink your water footprint on World Water Day (and throughout the rest of the year!), then you’ve come to the right place. Today we’re sharing seven simple changes that you can make to your daily routine that will help reduce your overall water consumption.
Do Use the Bucket Flush
Did you know that flushing your toilet the usual way can use up to seven gallons of water per flush? While this may not seem like the most first-world answer to water conservation, it’s a brilliant trick to know and will come in handy: use a gallon of water, pour it into your toilet in one fell swoop, and behold the miracle of your toilet flushing itself.
Don’t Leave the Tap Running
Most of us have heard it before: turning off the tap when brushing your teeth saves water. But few of us know just how much water this can save.
The average tap releases two gallons of water per minute – meaning if you brush your teeth twice a day, and for the recommended two minutes each time, you can waste up to eight gallons of water every day if you do keep the tap running (quite a shocking statistic when you think about it). Similarly, for the gents, it’s more economical to fill the sink for rinsing your razor and washing your face instead of letting the tap run.
Do Water Your Garden with a Watering Can Rather Than a Hosepipe…
… because the latter option can use as much as 1,000 litres of water an hour. To maximise your water-conservation efforts, you can mulch your plants with bark chippings, heavy compost, or straw to reduce evaporation. Alternatively, you should water outdoor plants in the early morning – that way you’ll need less water, since cooler morning temperatures mean losing less water to evaporation.
Don’t Dump the Pot
After cooking pasta, parboiling potatoes, or steaming vegetables, instead of dumping that water down the drain, save it – drain it into a large pot, allow it to cool, and reuse it for bucket-flushing or watering your plants. Just make sure you wait for it to cool, because your plants will not thank you if you chuck boiling water on them!
Do Fix Leaks and Running Toilets
This is an obvious but very important one: a running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water each day. At one drip per second, a dripping tap can waste 15 litres of water a day, or 3,000 gallons in a year. If your home is suffering from any of these defects, it’s time you called the plumber!
Do Choose Wisely Between a Bath and a Shower
A bath can take up to 70 gallons of water, whereas a five-minute shower uses anything between 10 and 25 gallons, so think twice next time you contemplate a relaxing bath. That said, if you don’t drain your bath water afterwards, you can always use that water to bucket-flush or water plants. Otherwise, you should consider getting an aerated shower head, which combines water and air to give you an invigorating shower, or inserting a regulator in your shower so you can keep tabs on flow rates.
Don’t Pre-Rinse Your Dishes
Last but not least, be sure to read your manual and see if your dishwasher requires pre-rinsing – a good scrape should suffice for most modern machines. While we’re at it, there are right ways and wrong ways of loading your dishwasher; doing it incorrectly will result in dishes not being properly washed, thus requiring extra water for a second wash.
Water is one of the most important resources for preserving life, so we hope you’ll join us in our quest to conserve water and reduce our collective water footprint. To read more about what you can do to help preserve wildlife, take a look at our World Wildlife Day blog.
If you wish to stay up-to-date with our conservation activities and the latest news, make sure you follow us on Facebook and Twitter.