Everyone knows why water conservation is so important. But as an individual, we always have our own perspective and doubts about its implementation in our day-to-day life. With some efforts, we all can save significant amount of water at home and garden.
In This Article:
A) Bathroom and Laundry
B) Toilet
C) Kitchen
D) Garden and Outdoor
E) Other
Simple solutions to conserve water and reduce its wastage
You can significantly cut your water use, with these very simple techniques.
We are going to mainly focus on the areas which use most of the water:
A) Bathroom And Laundry
1) Don’t keep the water running:
Old habits die hard. How many of us keep the tap water running while brushing? Almost all of us have done it at some point of time, and many people are still doing it.
Do you know that, you are wasting about 5 gallons (Approx. 19 Litres) of water by not closing the tap while brushing your teeth? Ohh…that’s a lot! Isn’t it?
Some ‘extraordinary’ people like to brush their teeth in the shower.
Honestly, how stupid is that? Maybe they enjoy cleaning their elbow, stomach, and gums simultaneously with a toothpaste drooling from their mouth.
Yikes! How gross and wasteful is that? Just ridiculous!
There is no need to keep water running, once you have wet your toothbrush. Same is with the shaving and soaping your hands. So, just close the poor little tap and open it again only when you need it.
Shaving takes a lot of time, especially if you have hard hair. So, instead of turning the tap on-off while shaving, you can keep a glass of water to clean your razor.
2) Use aerators
Have you ever experienced that, sometimes the water flow is so strong that, when you turn on the faucet, water just splashes on your hands with great pressure and ultimately spreads everywhere right from your clothes to your flooring making everything wet!
I have a similar faucet at home. Sometimes it acts like a very good boy and runs at a proper pressure, but sometimes, it just gets mad and causes a mini tsunami in my bathroom making everything wet.
It becomes worst especially during winter, when the water is colder than we expect. I almost got frozen once because of this super chilled mini tsunami. Ouch…
Such faucets not only create trouble for us, but also waste a lot of water with every run. Fortunately, we can easily convert these crazy runners to lazy runners with faucet aerators.
How it works?
- An aerator is a simple gadget that can be easily screwed to the tip of our existing faucet.
- It mixes the water with air and limits the water flow through the faucet.
- As a result, water use is reduced as compared to the flow without an aerator.
- It can restrict water flow to as little as a half a gallon a minute.
Pros:
- Affordable
- Easy to install
- Reduces water use
- Prevents splashing
- May reduce faucet’s noise
- Helps to run a straight and evenly pressured stream
- In the case of hot water, lesser use of water means, reduced heat energy bills.
3) Take a zero waste bath:
Don’t worry. I am not telling you to stop taking a bath, but you can reduce the amount of wastage with these few simple tips
Enjoy a natural bath:
Make the most of your nearby natural source of water like beach, lake, river, well, waterfall etc. whenever possible.
You can enjoy it alone or with your group. It will not only take you closer to the nature, but also give you a chance to strengthen your bonding with your family and friends by swimming together. It would be more fun that way.
Just make sure not to use any chemical soaps/ shower gels as they will pollute the water.
Ditch the bath tub:
If you don’t have any natural source of water nearby, just make the most of what is available at home.
No matter how relaxing it is, the average bath uses 36 gallons (approx. 136 Litres) to fill a bathtub, which is a huge waste of water. Especially if you take a bath twice daily, just think about amount of water you are wasting per day per person.
If you can’t ditch your bath tub,
- At least take a shallow bath, which will consume almost 50% less water.
- Share a tub: If you are an adult- take a romantic bath with your partner, or if you are a kid-have fun with your siblings by bathing together in a bathtub. This way, you can have a super quality time with lesser water wastage.
Take shower* (Conditions apply):
Take short showers
Shower is a better alternative to bathtubs as it uses approximately five gallons (19 Litres) of water per minute, which is comparatively lesser.
But it would be helpful, only if you take short shower of 3-4 minutes. Otherwise it will make no sense. Long shower is nearly as wasteful as a bathtub.
Artist Elisabeth Buecher has designed a concept shower curtain with inflatable spikes. After 4 minutes of shower, the spikes get filled with air and literally kick you out of the tub.
I don’t know if it can become commercially successful or not, but the idea is really funny and worth sharing.
Share a shower-No no!
Sharing a bath with your partner/ siblings can definitely save some water. But what about sharing a shower? I simply don’t think it will work in practical life.
My logic is very simple. When you have a good company, you are going to have a lot of fun, and you will never want it to end. So, you will stretch your shower longer.
Well, this is same even for using a bathtub, Right? No! Shower uses running water, and taking a long shower means huge waste of water.
Whereas in bathtub, once you have filled water in a tub, you can even spend hours in it. So, just avoid taking a shower together.
Use water saving shower head
You can also reduce the wastage of water further, by using a low flow showerhead which can take down the use to approx. two gallons (7.5 Litres) per minute.
Don’t let it drain
While taking a hot shower, many times, we have to start the shower and wait till the hot water comes. In the process, we let a lot of clean and cold water drain away at the beginning.
You can save this water by simply putting a bucket under the faucet or shower to save the cold water and prevent wastage. The water can be used directly around the household because it is very clean or can be used outdoors to water garden plants.
Buckets are the best!
My personal favourite is bucket as it takes as less as 4-5 gallons (15-20 Litres) for single bath. All you need is a bucket and a mug. That’s it. Fill the bucket with water and pour it on your body with the mug.
Pros:
- It is affordable
- Multipurpose (can be used for bathing / washing clothes / storage etc)
- Requires no skilled installation
- Takes less space
- Easy to replace / carry
- And most importantly reduces water wastage to a great extent.
That’s why it is the integral part of almost all Asian households. Generally, people use 1-2 buckets of water for single bath. Still, there are some people, who waste at least 5-6 buckets of water daily. So, ultimately, it’s all about our level of maturity and thought process.
When I came to Netherlands, we had a big bathtub with shower in our house which was a huge attraction as it is not easily found in Asian households.
But since day 1, we made it a point to use it as less as possible to reduce wastage. We even kept a bucket in our bathtub to take bath. Keeping a bucket in bathtub may look cheap to some people, but I simply don’t care!
Next time before taking a bath, just think about the people in drought affected areas, who have not taken a bath since weeks and are struggling daily by walking miles and miles to find basic supply of potable water for their families.
What about a towel bath?
In case of acute water shortage or an emergency, when there is absolutely no water to take a bath, wet towel or a sponge is a good way to take a quick sponge bath without using up your precious supplies to maintain personal hygiene, freshen up quickly, wash hands, and minor cleanups.
Take a perfect zero waste bath!
We can only reuse and recycle the water, but never manufacture. Some locals from developing countries have not only taken this thought seriously, but have found a solution to tackle the water shortage in their area.
Locals sit on a cot and bathe with a small container. The water that cleansed the dirt and sweat off their bodies is collected in another vessel underneath and reused for other household purposes like washing clothes, watering plants etc.
So, you don’t actually need hi-fi system and a big, expensive setup. All you need is the will to do something better.
4) Using A Washing Machine?
There are several ways to make your washing machine more effective, green and save money on laundry.
- Use smart washing machine which consumes less water and energy
- Wash only full loads of laundry or use the appropriate water level or load size selection on the washing machine.
- Don’t throw out the water from washing machine. You can use it to mop the floors or clean the drainage.
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