January
2008
Conserving Water, One Drop at a Time
I remember when I was young - maybe four or five - just getting down my tooth-brushing habits. Very short. Could hardly reach the bathroom faucet. While I was brushing my teeth one night, my dad told me to shut off the water while I was brushing.
“Why?”
My mom chimed in. “Because it’s a waste.”
“So?”
“So, we don’t need to be wasteful around here.”
“Why is it a waste?”
“Because you’re not using the water, and it’s costing us money.”
“Oh.”
So, for many years, that was the extent of my conservation efforts.
Many of my family’s conservation habits were out of necessity. For example, we lived in an old farmhouse with one shower and six people. Since we lived in the country, our water source was a well.
After about two 10-minute showers, the water could get ice cold.
So we combined our efforts. A couple of us took showers at night, and the rest of us took “Navy showers”, as my dad liked to call them.
Depending on how many of us needed to shower, Navy showers lasted anywhere between two and five minutes. We had to start a timer and be done FAST, or the rest of the family would have to shiver and shake through their chilly morning routine.
We installed a special showerhead that helped to reduce wasted waterflow, and my parents rigged the toilets somehow so that we used a minimal amount of water.
Also, to reduce cost, we always filled the sink with water to wash dishes, rather than let the water run. I’ve read that you can conserve more water by using a dishwasher, which makes me feel very clever and Earth-friendly.
I found a few websites that offer water saving tips. American Water and Energy Savers provides water-saving advice for indoors and outdoors. I like this website too, which offers 100 ways to conserve water by region. Also, this Tree Hugger website (cute name!) seems to have some helpful tips, including installing a water damn on older toilets, versus using a brick, which can deteriorate and clog your pipes.
What do YOU do to conserve water? What can you tell us about your water-saving experiences? Do you shut off the water while you’re brushing your teeth? Do you water plants with your half-empty water bottles that have stacked up in the floor of the backseat of your car so much that you filled two shopping bags while cleaning your car? Let me know.
One of my water conservation habits is similar to the “Navy shower.” My grandparents’ home has a small water heater, because for most of the year it is only the two of them in their small house. However, whenever family visits, Grandma reminds us to not run the water during our shower. It works like this… 1. Use just enough water to work up a good lather, then shut the water off. 2. Scrub away. 3. Turn water back on to rinse.
While Grandma’s intent is to save the hot water, I believe that this method of showering could possibly use a total of one or two gallons of water.
Another water-saving technique that I wish I utilized was the recycling of “grey water.” I learned about this several years ago while touring an “Earthship” outside of Taos, New Mexico.