Being Your Own Kind of Green - Conserving Water

Here in California we’re looking at drought conditions and the very real possibility of mandatory water rationing if next winter is as dry as the past several have been.

While we don’t yet have enforced rationing, officials have asked consumers to take voluntary measures to conserve water.

There are many great tips that we can all use to help us conserve water, but I was struck by the initiative taken by my girlfriend in response to the call for water conservation. Through her natural inventiveness and creative thinking, she came up with a great way to use her bath water to water our garden.

With the use of a small pump, some hose run along the side of our flat, and connecting all this to watering hose running the length of the garden, Jayne has devised a simple way to save about 36 gallons of water (the amount of water used for a typical bath).

Instead of all that water going down the drain, Jayne waters the garden instead. Sure, we have to deal with a pump and pulling a hose in the window to drain the tub, but it’s a pretty small price to pay to save upwards of 250 gallons of water every week.

Obviously, this isn’t going to work for everybody. My point is that we can all find ways particular to our own situation to conserve resources.

We can be our own kind of green.

Water Usage Facts and Figures:

A running faucet put 3 to 5 gallons of water down the drain every minute

You can easily use 5 gallons of water if you leave the tap running while you brush your teeth

Washing the dishes with the tap running will use an average of 30 gallons of water

If leave the tap running while you shave, you can use as much as 20 galloons of water

If you use a hose to wash your car at home, you’ll probably use about 150 gallons of water

Of all the water on Earth, only 3% is freshwater. Of that 68.7% comes from glaciers and icecaps, 30.1% from groundwater, and the rest from surface water (lakes, swamps, rivers, streams) and other sources.

Water is truly a precious resource.

Sources:
Natural Resource Defense Council: Fifty Things You Can Do To Save the Earth, 20th Anniversary Edition
United States Geological Survey
The Water Information Program
My Girlfriend

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[ READER COMMENTS ]

1

Tia said:

Hey, If I wanted to know the examples or situations that consern water, Wat website do i go to? I am doing a project. Thanks, Im looking foward to help.

Posted at 09:36 PM, on January 8 2009

Being Your Own Kind of Green - Conserving Water

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