Water for the Ages

This page will provide a list of ways that you can become engaged and affect positive change regarding international water issues.

Check your personal water use! A  new website called H2O Conserve is coming online to show us that it’s time to do something about our 1,000–plus gallon–a–day habit.

Take a pledge to stop drinking bottled water, and instead drink filtered tap water. Save room in our landfills, and your pocketbook.

Take the Think Outside The Bottle pledge here!

Eat a water friendly diet. No, this does not mean eat foods that have little water in them, it means eat foods that took less water to produce.

See the Water, What You Eat page for more information.

CONSERVE WATER (From the CELP website…)

Shower power. Install a low-flow showerhead and save more than 500 gallons of water per week. Not sure whether your showerhead needs replacing? Test it! If your shower can fill a one-gallon bucket in less than 20 seconds, replace it with a water-efficient showerhead. If you shorten your shower by a minute or two, you’ll save an additional 1,800 gallons of water per year.

A royal flush. Average homes flush 19 gallons of water per day down the toilet. By replacing an old toilet (especially models installed before 1994) with a low-volume model, you can cut the amount of water your house uses by more than half to 8 gallons per day - and save more than $1,000 in water and sewer charges over the next 10 years. (To get the most whoosh for your flush, look for a FlushStar model.)

Tanks for everything. All toilets waste water as the parts in the tank wear down; even if you don’t hear your toilet running, water may be leaking silently from the tank into the bowl. Check your existing toilet for leaks by putting food coloring in your toilet tank. If the color seeps into the bowl, you’ve got a leak. Fix the leak by installing a new flapper and save more than 600 gallons of water per month.
Insulate! Save time and water by insulating your hot water pipes so that you don’t have to run as much water to get the hot water up to your faucets.

Fair-a-faucet. Fixing a leaky faucet only takes a few minutes and a little elbow grease, but it will save you 140 gallons of water a week. Install 1 gallon per minute faucet aerators in your bathroom and 2 gallon per minute aerators on your kitchen faucet and save water every time you turn on the tap.
Get scrappy. Compost kitchen scraps instead of running the garbage disposal.

A lawn time coming. Water outdoor plants in the early morning hours when air temperature is cooler, adjust your lawn mower to a higher setting because longer grass better shades root systems and holds in soil moisture, and mulch around plants to reduce evaporation. Save even more water by choosing low-water plants for your yard.

Dish up water savings. Unless you’re a superstar washer of dishes, dishwashers use less water than hand washing. Get an Energy Star model, and save water, energy, and time - most new dishwashers don’t require you to pre-rinse your dishes.

A clothes call. Save water by washing full loads of laundry. If you have an older washer, consider replacing your old top-loading machine with a water-saving front-loader and save thousands of gallons of water each year. Front-loaders are gentler on clothes, reduce drying time, and require less detergent.