9 Random Ways to Save Water
July 3, 2009 by Editor
Filed under Water Saving Solutions
By Katie McCabe, San Diego Living Green Examiner
1. Only order water in restaurants if you really want it. According to the San Diego Water Department, every glass of water served at a restaurant requires another two glasses to wash and rinse it. “Since nearly 70 million meals are served each day in US restaurants, we’d save more than 26 million gallons of water if only one person in four declined the complimentary glassful.”
2. Color your toilet water. Add a few drops of food coloring into your toilet tank. If it seeps into the toilet before you’ve flushed, you have a leak. Fixing the leak can save countless gallons per month.
3. Put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank. First, add about an inch of sand to the bottle, then fill it with water and screw on the cap. Put the bottle into your tank (away from any important plumbing items): The amount of space taken up by the bottle equals the amount of water saved in each flush.
4. Water your lawn with more water…but less often. Sprinkling your lawn too lightly can actually prevent the water from getting deep enough into the soil, which causes the grass to develop shallower roots and the grass becomes less resistant to a drought. Instead, deep soak your grass and use the San Diego Water Department’s landscape watering calculator to know how often for your lawn: http://apps.sandiego.gov/landcalc/start.do.
5. Cover your pool. An averaged-sized pool loses 1,000 gallons of water per month. You can reduce it by 90% by using a pool cover.
6. Add a patio. A nice patio will not only add value to your property, but it also takes the place of grass or other plants that need to be watered.
7. Water your lawn on non-windy days. The wind can blow the water off your grass or plants. What a waste!
8. Don’t use your toilet or sink as a garbage can. Flushing tissues or cigarettes down your toilet wastes a flush every time. And scraping your dishes into your garbage disposal rather than a trash can (or compost bin!) causes extra running water.
9. Water plants in creative ways. Use leftover water to water your plants: melted ice from a cup, water from cooking noodles or vegetables, or the water from your hot water faucet while waiting for it to warm up.
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Source: Examiner.com
For more ways to save water at home, view Nuprana’s Water Conservation Products.
An additional way to save water yet not so random but little know is a dual flush toilet conversion kit. I used on on my farm and have saved gobbs of water. Thanks for the tips I will impliment them right away
I’m glad that you pointed out that the toilets should not be used as trash cans. Here is a tip to encourage people to place items like sanitary products, personal wipes, Q-tips, dental floss and condoms in the trash. You save water every time you don’t flush these items and when flushed, they not only clog up the plumbing , but can damage machines in sewage treatment plants, and can escape the system during storms to pollute fresh water and litter beaches, where they endanger marine wildlife, who mistake it for their natural prey. Try using singe-use biodegradable bags to dispose of these items in the trash. They keep the bathroom sanitary and also save trees by providing and alternative to wrapping things in wads of toilet paper. Check out http://www.scensiblesource.com for a new product that solves the problem and for free samples.
I second the observation made by Miles – I installed a dual-flush toilet 2 years ago and my household water usage dropped by about 20%. These are a very niche item everywhere but the dry western region. I would like to see the larger big box home improvement stores increase their inventory of these toilets nationwide. Imagine if even 1/2 the nations homes made this conversion!
Another niche item I would like to see more of is simple rain collection for lawn watering setups. I live in the midwest and we easily get enough total rainfall between spring and early fall that I could do all of my lawn watering if I could store some rain water this way. Because of the low demand the prices for barrels / cisterns is quite high, plus no company appears to put out a complete system (filters, cross-overs, sump pump, etc) that a homeowner could self-install.