Happy Earth Day, friends. Here’s hoping you got a chance to take in some natural beauty today. It’s so good for you!
Thanks for coming back to check out the second part of why our water habits matter. If you haven’t read part 1, you can find that link here: Why Our Water Habits Matter: Part 1 of 2.
What follows is a collection of tips to save water. I learned about them through a variety of sources throughout my life and in researching this post. Some are fairly easy and you can start introducing them into your daily life as soon as right now.
Word of warning: don’t try to tackle everything all at once. Gradually including these routines in your daily life will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed and make you more likely to stick with them.
How Can We Conserve Water?
In the bathroom
1. Turn the faucet off while washing your hands.
According to the CDC guidelines for washing your hands, there is no need to scrub your hands under a running faucet. Once you get your hands wet a little, turn the faucet off and then scrub with soap for twenty seconds. It’s the act of scrubbing that helps lift the germs from your skin, by generating friction. Then turn the water back on to rinse all the dirt, grease and microbes off.
In fact, the CDC specifically recommends turning the faucet off:
Turning off the faucet after wetting hands saves water, and there are few data to prove whether significant numbers of germs are transferred between hands and the faucet.
2. Wash your hands in cold water instead of hot or warm.
So this one doesn’t actually save water, but it does save energy since it takes some form of energy to heat the water. According to the CDC again:
The temperature of the water does not appear to affect microbe removal; however, warmer water may cause more skin irritation and is more environmentally costly.
3. Take shorter showers. Aim for 5 minutes.
An easy first step to taking shorter showers is simply timing yourself. I found that just being aware of how long I spent in the shower had a positive effect on my behavior. You can buy waterproof shower timers online, but honestly your phone should be good enough.
As far as body-washing strategies goes, my method is the same as when I wash my hands: wet my body, turn the water off, lather with soap, and then turn the water back on to wash it off. That easily shaves off a couple of minutes. (I should note that I have short hair and don’t know what goes into washing long hair.)
4. When shaving consider how much water you’re using in the process.
If you shave in front of the sink, try filling the sink or a bowl with water once and then use that to rinse your blades.
If you shave in the shower, try not to keep the water running the entire time. If you shave after cleaning your body, you can plug the drain for a minute before you start shaving and then use that water to rinse your blades. Depending on your shower flow rates and the size of your tub, sometimes taking a bath could save even more water.
5. Install a low-flow shower head.
You can find shower heads with all sorts of flow rates ranging from 0.75 GPM to 2 GPM. I use the Speakman S-2252-E175 Icon Brass Shower Head which has a flow rate of 1.75 GPM.
6. Find out the flow rate of your current shower head.
If you don’t know the flow rate of your shower head, you can find out by using a bucket and a stopwatch. Run the shower for a minute, and see how much of the bucket is filled. You can use a cup measurer to determine the amount of water in the bucket. 16 cups = 1 gallon. Don’t forget to repurpose that water instead of dumping it down the drain.
The goal here is again to be aware of how much water you’re consuming.
7. Capture your warm-up water.
If your shower takes some time to warm up to a comfortable temperature, use a bucket to capture the cold water until you’re ready to step in. You can then use that water around your house for watering plants, washing dishes by hand, and even flushing your toilet. (Did you know that if you pour water into the bowl of your toilet at a fast enough rate, it triggers an automatic flush?)
8. Skip every other flush. Skip more if you can.
9. Pee in the shower.
Whether you have a septic tank (which allows clean water to seep down into the ground water) or you use your city’s sewer system (which cleans your waste water at a treatment facility), the water/pee that goes down your shower drain ends up in the same place as the water/pee that goes down your toilet.
10. Don’t flush anything other than waste or toilet paper.
Anything else you put in there has to be filtered back out, requiring energy.
11. Check your toilet for leaks.
Put a few drops of food coloring in your toilet tank. If, without flushing, the coloring begins to appear in the bowl, you have a leak that needs repairing.
12. Put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank.
I’ve heard of people putting a brick in their toilet tank to reduce the water used with each flush. The brick displaces water, which means each flush uses less water. But, like, where do you even get bricks from?
The internet suggested a simpler method: fill a 1 liter plastic bottle with an inch or two of sand or pebbles and then the rest with water. Then place it in your toilet tank, safely away from the operating mechanism.
13. Turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth.
If you brush your teeth for two minutes you could save 2 to 4 gallons of water by shutting off the faucet.
14. Install a low-flow faucet aerator.
Low-flow faucet aerators reduce the flow of water from your faucet without reducing pressure. You screw them into your faucet head, and they can reduce your water output by 50%. I have my eye on this one here, which offers a 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 GPM flow rate.
If you do shop for one, pick one with the WaterSense label, which means it meets the EPA criteria for water efficiency and performance.
15. Check your faucet and pipes for leaks.
I read that a faucet that leaks at a rate of ten drips per minute can waste up to three liters (or 0.79 gallons) of water a day.
In the kitchen
1. Keep water in the fridge if you like cold water.
If you run your tap water for a few seconds waiting for it to get cold before you fill a glass, consider keeping some water in a container in the fridge.
2. Only run when your dishwasher when it is full.
Newer ENERGY STAR dishwashers use almost 5.5 gallons of water per load. Older models can use up to 15 gallons. Anything less than a full dishwasher is wasting water.
It’s also worth noting that your dishwasher uses less water than hand-washing.
3. If you wash dishes by hand, don’t leave the water running.
If you have a dual sink, fill one with hot, soapy water for washing, and the other with cool, clear water for rinsing. You could end up using half the water you otherwise would. If you have a single sink, fill two large bowls instead.
4. Think twice before pre-rinsing your dishes before you load the dishwasher.
Some newer dishwashers don’t require you to pre-rinse your dishes. Check the instruction manual that came with the machine.
If you do pre-rinse though, instead of letting the sink run, fill a bowl with water. Then keep reusing that water to scrub your dishes before you load the dishwasher.
5. Don’t let the faucet run while you clean vegetables.
Rinse your vegetables in a bowl instead. Just like with your skin, it’s the scrubbing action that makes the most difference.
6. If you do let the faucet run while you rinse vegetables use a colander, and capture that water so you can reuse it elsewhere, like your plants or a garden.
7. Avoid boiling your veggies.
Consider steaming your vegetables instead of boiling them. You can use less water, and you get the added benefit of your vegetables retaining more of its nutrients.
Or microwave them, which uses even less water!
In the laundry room
1. Upgrade your washing machine.
Nowadays, most new washers are High-Efficiency Washers (HEW). They can use 14 to 25 gallons of water per load whereas older. washers can use up 45 gallons.
Look for Energy Star–certified machines. They use less water because instead of filling a tub with water, your clothes are flipped and spun through streams of water and repeated high-pressure sprayings.
2. Only run your washing machine when it is full
Even at the low end, 14 gallons is a lot of water to use on a half-empty machine.
In the yard
1. Water your lawn when you need to.
If your grass springs back after you step on it, it probably doesn’t need to be watered.
Check the weather forecast first. If rain is expected in a day or so, let mother nature water your lawn for you.
2.Water you lawn when the sun is not out.
If the sun is out, the water will evaporate more quickly, meaning less water gets to the roots where it’s needed.
3. Give your lawn a deep-soak.
If you only give it a light sprinkling, the water will evaporate more quickly as well.
4. Think twice about your automatic sprinklers.
According to the AWWA Research Foundation’s outdoor end use study, households that manually water with a hose typically use 33 percent less water outdoors than the average household. The study also showed that households with in-ground sprinkler systems used 35 percent more water, those with automatic timers used 47 percent more water, and those with drip irrigation systems used 16 percent more water than households without these types of systems.
Water-efficient Landscape Irrigation Methods
Find more lawn-watering tips at the epa.gov.
5. Avoid using a hose to clean your sidewalk.
Often a broom does just as good a job.
6. Turn off the hose while you wash your car.
Fill a bucket with soap and water and use that. Then only use the hose to rinse it all off.
OR find a car-washing company that uses recycled water.
OR OR wash your car when it’s raining!
7. Mulch it.
Apparently mulch slows the evaporation of moisture. So put a layer around your trees and plants.
8. Reduce how much your children play with water for fun.
This includes reducing how much they use the hose and sprinklers and play with water balloons.
This one hurts because I grew up playing with all of these things, and would hate to deprive children of the joy I got to have, especially on a hot summer day. Public pools and fountains are good alternatives if you’re privileged enough to have access to them.
9. Cover your pool.
This helps prevent water from evaporating. Consider transparent plastic bubble covers so you can still utilize the sun’s rays to keep your water warm. (Of course the trade off here is using more plastic.)
10. Capture your rainwater
Not possible for everyone, obviously, but if you have the means to do so, you’re giving yourself a free source of water. Read more about rainwater harvesting.
Everywhere Else
Some of these tips won’t be useful while we’re stuck in our homes. But do keep them in mind, as they will hopefully soon be useful again.
1. Skip the ice.
Whether you’re dining out or getting a drink to go, ask your server or food-preparer to skip the ice. Unless you enjoy chewing on ice, the odds are good that there will be leftover ice in your cup or glass when you’re done with it, and it will just get dumped down the drain.
Plus you get the added benefit of more of your actual drink too.
2. Preemptively decline the water at restaurants.
Most restaurants will bring you a glass of water whether you ask for it or not. If you know you never actually drink it, tell them no thanks before they pour it out.
In that same vein, you can tell them not to refill your glass of water if you know you don’t want anymore.
If you are about to leave a full glass of water at a restaurant, consider chugging it or filling your reusable water bottle with it.
3. Get in the habit of looking for the flush rates of toilets.
Most toilets have their flush rates printed where the bowl meets the tank.
When I started paying attention to those rates, I found that one bathroom in my office building only uses 1 gallon per flush, instead of the more common 1.6 GPF. I now try to use that toilet whenever possible.
4. Consider your shopping habits.
You use more than the water that comes out of your faucets and hoses. Water is needed in the production process of just about everything we purchase. With food, for example, water was needed in the agricultural process, as well as in the packaging and shipping process. For the most part, we as consumers are completely unaware of that water, which is why it’s called virtual water.
You can find the water footprint of an item by combining the volume of water consumed, evaporated and polluted in the process of production.
A big step you can make for improving water efficiency is learning about the water footprint of the different items in your life. To that end, waterfootprint.org has created an interactive tool that tells you the water footprint of many commonly consumed items which you can find here.
Also, you can use their Water Footprint Calculator to get a rough idea of how much water your household uses. Here are my results:
I plan to take the assessment again in a couple of months after continuing to work on my water habits.
5. Eat less meat.
Raising animals to be eaten uses shockingly high amounts of water. Most of the volume, roughly 98%, can be attributed to the animals’ feed.
One quarter pound of beef has a water footprint of 460 gallons. That same quarter pound of chicken uses about 130 gallons. The same amount of cheese uses 95 gallons. The same amount of dry pasta uses 55 gallons. The same amount of lettuce uses 7 gallons.
I’m not suggesting you replace a hamburger with plain lettuce and dry pasta. I merely include these figures to give you a sense of how much more water meat uses than other foods. Whatever you can do to reduce your meat and dairy consumption helps.
6. Donate
Look for charities focused on safe drinking water and water conservation, and give, give give.
Do your own research, but one such organization providing safe drinking water for people is The Water Project. They’re working especially hard during this COVID 19 outbreak. Read about those efforts here.
7. Research it!
If you’re curious about something, google it. Read books, watch documentaries, listen to podcasts. (Netflix has a good, short doc about water in their docu-series Rotten. The episode is titled “Troubled Water.”)
Knowledge is power. Arm yourself with information and make educated decisions. Change isn’t always easy, but you do yourself a favor when you give yourself all the knowledge you can. Even if you decide to change nothing, at least you know your impact and can take responsibility for it.
If you’ve ever watched the sitcom The Good Place, you’ll understand me when I say that I’m a Chidi about decision-making. If you don’t watch, Chidi is one of the lead characters who is often rendered immobile and aching by his inability to make a decision. I will literally spend hours in a not-crowded grocery store debating almost every item.
I can go into full blown analysis paralysis trying to decide if I should get the more expensive item that might be a tad better for the environment than the cheaper item, but only if my local recycling facility will actually process it. BUT… if I buy the cheaper one then theoretically I have more money with which to donate to environmental causes I support. And maybe I don’t need either because there’s a way I can make the product on my own, BUT only if I can get all the materials without plastic containers.
All this is to say that making the “right” choice can be difficult, especially when every action you take can have unintended consequences. In the end the right choice is what you feel comfortable with, what makes you feel like you’ve tried your best. I’m not always going to shower in less than 5 minutes. Occasionally I will, but once in a while I’ll spend double that. I’ll keep trying my best. And that’s all I want for you, reader. Just try to your best to care for our home.
Disclaimer: I’m not a subject matter expert on any of this. I’m just a guy with a search engine and a passion for protecting the environment. In addition to the links included above, you can find the sources of my knowledge in the list below. If anything I’ve said is factually wrong, please let me know.
- What Happens When You Flush?
- Where Does Toilet Water Go?
- Where Does Our Home Wastewater Go?
- 25 Ways to Save Water
- 11 Ways To Save Water At Home
- 10 Easy Ways to Save Water at Home
- 5 Documentaries You Must See to Understand the Water Crisis
- 10 Must-see water documentaries that provide insight into the future water crisis
