There are many ways to conserve water right in your own home!
- Turn off water while brushing your teeth or shaving.
- Store drinking water in the refrigerator instead of running water until its cold.
- Take showers instead of baths. Also, try to take shorter showers to conserve water.
- Don’t use toilets as trashcans or ashtrays. Each unnecessary flush wastes water.
- Rinse dishes in a pan instead of running water.
- Use your dishwasher only when it’s full.
- Whenever possible, use the washing machine only when there is a full load of laundry to do, this will reduce the amount of time, energy, and water the machine uses.
- Check for leaks in faucets, toilets, hoses, and pipes. A steady drip wastes up to 20 gallons a day, and a leaky toilet can waste 100 gallons. That’s more than 30,000 gallons per year! To check for leaks, turn off everything that uses water. Record the reading on your water meter. If after 20 minutes the reading has changed, you have a leak somewhere. Toilets are prime suspects. To check, drop food coloring into the tank. If after a few minutes color appears in the bowl – you have a leak.
- Install an aerator on each faucet and a low flow shower head to reduce water flow by 50-75%
- Put a quart plastic bottle filled with sand or stones in your toilet tank to displace and save many gallons of water a day. Just be sure that it’s not in the way of your flush mechanism.
- Add garbage to the trash instead of using a garbage disposal, which uses lots of water and adds unnecessary solids to waste systems.