conserve water

Putting a bucket under the shower while the water heats up. Actually saves quite a few buckets full over the week.

This is one of those things that’s never really done. There’s always another place to save water—more rain collection, better drip irrigation, greywater reuse, etc. But I’ve installed some rain barrels, bought and installed a low-water-use toilet and washing machine, put in a water-saving shower head with an “off” button, and started using a shower timer. The low-hanging fruit has been plucked.

Part of ecological footprint goal.

Might drop this. Lump under eco-friendliness.

- in service of water conservation – is not a viable option, I think I’ve done about all I can for this goal at present.

which has made replacement challenging…and I’m a renter.

Continuing with the greywater watering though. And I’m towel-bathing instead of daily showering.

Just spent time in Africa where bathing from a bucket was routine so feeling good and comfy with continuing this practice.

in the toilet – step one. super easy and hopefully effective. next up – low flow my kitchen sink faucet (bathrooms already done). for the past two weeks, my plants are being watered exclusively with water collected during dishwashing. so far they’re doing great.

Installed a faucet aerator, I’m turning off the water while soaping for hand washing and showering, and not prewashing dishes before loading the dishwasher.

Ooookay… I’m brushing my teeth out of the shower now, using a plastic bottle filled with water in the tank of the toilet for water displacement, being less anal about prewashing dishes before they go in the dishwasher (I guess I don’t trust the dishwasher to get them clean), using handwashing water from throughout the day to fill one side of the kitchen sink for cleaning off recyclables…

Also I’m considering using a bowl of water each day with a little vinegar for handwashing since I wash my hands like 50 times a day (okay, that’s an exaggeration) and probably usually don’t need it, but… I can’t stand thinking there MIGHT be anything semi-gross on my hands. Anyway, I know vinegar is a disinfectant and really good for your skin if you don’t make it too strong… what do you guys think? I can’t help but think there is some drawback, since I’ve never heard of this before. But then again, maybe the environmentally friendly people of the world are less worried about clean hands? lol

Oh. And I want to use rainwater to water my plants. Not just for the water conservation, but because it’s not treated with crap that I’m sure is bad for my plants… BUT I can’t figure out a convenient way to collect it. A bucket doesn’t catch enough for even one watering (like one inch per rainshower… lame). I was considering catching some water out of the rain gutter, but can anyone tell me if there’s chemical crap from the roof that would make the water bad?

There are some alarming statistics about the globle water situation:(from Advanced magazine)
1.1 billion people still do not have access to an adequate supply of drinking water and some 2.6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation.
nearly 6000 children under the age of five dying every day because of diarrhea.