Water Conservation Tips

Simple Tips to Help You Save Water at Your Home and Garden

Water is precious resource in this world that we have to protect for our children's future. Here are some easy to do water conservation tips to help you reduce on your family's water consumption.

Can you imagine your life without fresh water? Fresh water is a precious resource essential to our existence and to the natural environment. We use water in many aspects of our lives, to produce food, manufacture goods and maintain our health.

Although 70% of the Earth is covered by water, only 2.5% of the world’s water is fresh, while 97.5% is oceans.

According to UNESCO's grim predictions, due to word’s increasing population along with growing water consumption, by the year 2050 at least one out of four people is likely to live in countries affected by chronic or recurrent shortages of freshwater.

I don’t want my children and grandchildren to live in a world with no fresh water. Therefore it is our responsibility to think of their future and acknowledge that water is valuable resource that we have to protect.

So what can I do?

With only few minor changes to our daily life we can contribute and save on our water consumption. Here are some easy to do water conservation tips to help you reduce your water usage at home and garden and save you money on your water bill as well:

Wash only full loads- When using your dishwasher or washing machine wash only full loads.

Turn the tap water off - While brushing your teeth, shaving, or washing your face you can turn the water off, to rinse your razor fill some water in the sink.

To wash fruits and vegetables fill the basin or a bowl with water.

If you wash dishes by hand don't leave the water running for rinsing. Rinse them all at the same time, or fill your sink with water and some soap and let the dishes to soak there and then quickly rinse them off.

Use less water with each flush - Every time you flush your toilet you waste about 6 liter of water. To reduce the volume of water used for flashing you can fill a milk bottle with water and put it in the toilet cistern, it can save you about 45 liters every day! Another idea is to install a dual flush toilet.

Don’t waste cold water - When taking a shower, collect the cold water in a bucket while waiting for the hot water. You can use it later to water your plants, wash your home, your car or to flush your toilet.

Shorten your showers - Take short showers. Shortening your showers by one or two minutes can save a great deal of water.

Check for leaks - Check regularly for any leaks and fix them. Most common bathroom leaks are found in faucets and in and around toilets.

Wash your car with a bucket and sponge - Use a bucket and sponge to wash your car, don’t use a hose. You can use the cold water you collected from your showers.

In your garden - Set sprinklers to water the lawn, not sidewalks and driveways.

Water during the cool parts of the day. Early morning is better than dusk since it helps prevent evaporation

Click here for more tips on how to save water in the garden.

Collect rain water - This is fun to do with kids, collect rain water in a large container that has a cover and use the water on your garden. Just make sure to keep it covered to prevent mosquitoes breeding.

Recycle your grey water - 50-80% of household wastewater is greywater from kitchen sinks, dishwashers, bathroom sinks, tubs, shower, laundry and evaporative air conditioner. This water could be reused in our lawns and gardens.

There are several ways in which you can collect your greywater, the most basic free way is to collect them with a bucket and manually take them out to water your garden. The more convenient yet expensive way is to install a collection system that divert the water to an outdoor holding bin for filtration and reuse. Click here to learn more about greywater recycling for irrigation.

Note: If you intent to recycle your greywater, be sure to read this information first.

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