Photo Credit: Flicker/Foshydog
Summer is coming and with the warmer weather usually comes a hike in our water consumption. We wash our cars, fill the kiddies’ pools, and water the lawn so we get a plush green backyard. Not to say we can’t do all of these things from time to time, but perhaps we can be a little wiser with our use of water not only outside, but indoors too so that we can have plenty of clean water in the future. Here are some reminders from a previous post to help with cutting down on wasteful water use in your home:
Rinsing dishes before they go in the dishwasher is a water waster, but not everyone has a super powered machine that can handle caked on food. If you have a great machine, the best practice is to not rinse your dishes before they go in the dishwasher. Put them in dirty and let the machine do all the work. If you don’t have a powerful machine, then use a dishpan or a large pot to hold your rinsing water. There is no need to run your tap to rinse dishes that will be sanitized in the dishwasher anyway. If you rinse dishes for 10 minutes with running tap water, you will use anywhere between 30 and 50 gallons of water. If you fill a dishpan, you will only use between two and three gallons.
Faucet-mounted water filters help us cut down on bottled water and therefore save us all money. But how many times have you let that water run for a minute to get it nice and cold for drinking? Avoid this by filling some glass pitchers with filtered water and keep them in the fridge. This way you have cold drinking water available when you want it, without wasting 2 to 4 gallons of water at the tap.
Speaking of the faucet filter, those cartridges must be changed from time to time to be effective. One problem with this though, when you change the cartridge you have to let the water flow through the new one for up to five minutes to flush the filter of any yucky stuff. This can waste up to 25 gallons of water! And this is not water that you can use for drinking water, it’s pretty murky so give it the full 5 minutes. But you can use this water to fill your dishpan for soaking dishes for the dishwasher. Or you can fill your watering can and water your plants with it. Or, save it to mix with vinegar for a homemade household cleaner. Be creative on how you can use this water, just don’t drink it or cook with it.
Another creative water saving technique is to put buckets in your shower with you. Yes, while you are taking a shower. We use 5 – 10 gallons of water per minute in the shower to rinse off and then it just goes down the drain. If you fill one or two - five gallon buckets with the water that falls around you in the shower, you save a whole minute’s worth of water. You can use this water for plants or you can do something a little more complicated, and use it for flushing your toilet. There are several systems available for purchase that you can have installed in your plumbing system that captures your shower water and reroutes it to your toilet. If you don’t have the space or desire to do this, you can just pour the reclaimed water into your toilet manually. Depending on your toilet style and ease of access to the tank, you can either pour the water in the tank (being sure not to overfill) or just pour it in the bowl until the flush mechanism is activated. If you have questions about how this works on your specific toilet, please call a plumber.
According to the EPA, the average American uses 60 gallons per day! We can’t go without it, but we can do better than that. And the great news, conserving in our homes not only saves our future water supply, but it also saves us money. Every little drop you conserve is important. If you can incorporate some of these water savers into your routine, you can cut your water usage by a quarter or more. That directly reflects on your water bill!
Eco Home Consultations provides green living consultation services in the Seattle area, focusing on practical ways to integrate green living into your household. Learn more at www.ecohomeconsults.com or email questions about this blog or other green living issues to Melissa@ecohomeconsults.com.
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