Eco Tip Tuesday*: Watch Your Water Usage!

In honor of World Water Day, here are some tips to help you conserve water:

1. When loading your dishwasher, skip the pre-rinse. Just scrape off what you can and let the machine do the actual cleaning.
2. Run fewer, fuller loads when using both the dishwasher and the washing machine.
3. To extend the lifespan of your sheets between washings, try swapping out the pillow cases more often than the rest of the set.
4. Boycott bottled water. Not only does the plastic end up in our oceans and landfills for all eternity, three liters of regular water go into making just one liter of bottled water!
5. Save pasta water. Drain pasta over a bowl instead of your kitchen sink. The water can be used in the sauce or as a base for soup.
6. Don't dump kettle water. Only heat what you are planning to use.
7. Harvest the rain. Put a rain barrel below your gutter downspout and you'll be amazed by how much water it captures. You can use the bounty to water your garden.
8. Choose native plants. Water used on lawns and gardens accounts for up to 40 percent of total household use. Select species that are indigenous to your area, and they'll have a much better chance of thriving with what Mother Nature provides.
9. Start scheduling your sprinkler. If you live in a very hot and dry climate, water in the evening. If you live in a moist area, do it in the morning to avoid mildew problems. No matter where you live, you should never water midday; you'll lose too much to evaporation.
10. Rethink your lawn. Lawns require huge amounts of water to stay healthy and green, particularly if you live in a dry climate. Consider replacing yours with gravel and native plants. This site has great tips for creating your own xeriscape.
11. Instead of using a hose to clean your porch, driveway, or sidewalk, use a broom. (You'll burn more calories that way too!)
12. Fix your toilet. If you have one that is constantly running, you could be wasting up to 200 gallons every day.
13. If you opt to buy a new toilet, only consider models that have been given the Water-Sense label. It certifies that the toilet uses 20 percent less water.
14. If it's yellow, let it mellow. By making it a house rule not to flush every time, a family of four could save 9 to 11 flushes -- that's 45 to 55 gallons a day!** But please, for the sake of our senses, if it's brown, flush it down.
15. Reduce your junk mail. About 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce all of that unwanted paper. Check out the Paper Karma smart phone app to help you get started.
16. Hang on to your jeans. Denim jeans are one of the biggest wardrobe water-hogs, requiring 2,900 gallons of water to produce a single pair! Whenever possible, mend them yourself, or have them mended by a local tailor. And when you want a new pair, consider buying used.
17. My personal favorite water-saving tip (and by far the most effective): Go meatless more often. It takes 1,857 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef. A pound of chicken requires 469 gallons, and a pound of butter requires a whopping 2,044 gallons of water! In contrast, a pound of lettuce requires 15 gallons; a pound of potatoes requires 33; a pound of beans requires 43; a pound of tofu requires 244.

Bonus tip! My personal second-favorite way to conserve water: rarely bathe your children. Ha! :)

(All statistics taken from an article titled 50 Ways to Conserve Water, written by Virginia Sole-Smith for the April 2012 issue of Whole Living magazine.)


*I refuse to change the title, despite the fact that less than half of my related posts have actually been published on a Tuesday.
**Post-publication, a little birdy informed me that, while this particular statistic assumes a 5-gallon per flush toilet, nearly all toilets these days use significantly fewer gallons per flush. She also suggested that, if your toilet is that inefficient, you can lower the flush quantity by adjusting the fill valve or placing a full water bottle in the tank. Thanks, little birdy! Tweet tweet!