Friday: Water

Friday's challenge was to "Soak up the personal benefits of using less water!"  The average American uses 1,189 gallons of water per day.  Yikes.  In looking at what goes into this water footprint, I realized how much I take for granted the mass amounts of water used to produce the goods and services I consume.

In watching my water usage habits throughout the day, I found that there were a lot of simple changes I could make.  Now, I've started turning off the faucet while I lather my hands with soap.  As I'm a big tea drinker, I've started to boil only the exact amount of water I need for each cup (this is related more to conserving energy).  I am conscious now to limit my showers to 5-7 minutes (a timer helps).  I've also started using a cup to rinse with after brushing my teeth, instead of running the faucet and using my hands.  While washing dishes by hand, I'm not leaving the faucet running the entire time (the lazy way).  I'm doing the same for washing vegetables.  These changes take no added effort - only a conscious break with old habits - yet can make a significant difference over time.

Water conservation habits that I've already had in place are turning off the faucet while I brush my teeth, running the dishwasher only when it's completely full, using the same water glass and tea mug throughout the day, washing only full loads of laundry (and using high efficiency front-loading machines), not overfilling the bathtub (to where it starts draining out), and only taking water refills at restaurants if I'm going to drink them.  I'm sorry to say that the plumbing in my pre-war apartment is not very well-equipped for water conservation - the biggest offender is probably the old-school toilet...  Perhaps I'll talk to the owner about this.

Check out these 50 water saving tips!  It's good to be reminded of this stuff :)