With droughts and water shortages slated to affect virtually every country in the world in the not-too-distant future, it is important that every one of us try to conserve water wherever we can.
If you have been wondering whether you can make a meaningful difference, trust me, you can and if every one of us does what we can individually it will add up to a massive conservation of meaningful volumes of water globally.
How to Conserve Water at Home
According to a study by policy analyst Benjamin D. Inskeep and Shahzeen Z. Attari, an assistant professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University in Bloomington, published in the July-August 2014 issue of Environment, any household can cut its outdoor water use by between 10 and 100% and indoor water use by 60% or more.
Water-saving changes include both technology upgrades such as buying a more water-efficient showerhead and behavioural changes, such as taking a shorter shower. According to the study, both will conserve water, sometimes behavioural changes will conserve more and in other circumstances it is the modern technology that will be the biggest conserver
With the above in mind, here are some figures on how much water you can conserve via various methods:
- Replacing standard toilets with WaterSense-labelled toilets (19%)
- Replacing old washing machines with an Energy-Star-labelled washer (17%)
- Reducing your showering time from 8 minutes to 5 minutes (8%)
- Washing only full loads of clothes (8%)
- Reducing the amount of times you flush your toilet by one-fourth (7%)
Technical upgrades to your toilets, washing machines, showerheads, taps and dishwashers will reduce your indoor water use by 45%; just upgrading the two biggest-ticket items, your washing machine and toilet, will offer a 35% reduction.
Add behavioural changes like switching off taps while brushing your teeth, showering for shorter periods of time and hand-watering your garden, and that figure mounts astronomically.
Saving water indoors not only helps the planet by helping to keep water in your local reservoir, aquifer or river, but will save you on water bills and energy bills too, as reducing the use of hot water means cutting your energy bill.
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