Water Conservation Tips for Your Home

Water and You

We’re fortunate to live in a region where fresh, clean water is readily available to us at the turn of a tap. Oftentimes we take this for granted. Every aspect of our lives – the food we eat, the clothes we wear, outdoor activities – could be negatively affected without water conservation.

The key to a reliable, long-term water supply is rooted in every Kansan’s understanding of the importance of this critical resource. Not only committing but acting on that commitment to ensure it is available for future generations.

Conserving Water at Home

Your home is the first place to begin thinking about your role in water conservation. From morning showers to watering your lawn in the evening, a few simple changes in your daily routine can have a lasting impact on the future of water in Kansas.

The wash cycle on a family’s automatic clothes washer uses more water in 30 minutes than a pioneer family used in one whole day.

Kitchen and Laundry

Use automatic dishwashers for full loads only. Every time a dishwasher is operated about 17 gallons of water are used. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your water usage.
The same applies to laundry. Use automatic washing machines only for full loads. Automatic washers use 30 to 35 gallons of water per use.
Don’t leave the water running when washing dishes by hand. If one sink is used, gather all the washed dishes in the dish rack and rinse them with an inexpensive spray device. If two sinks are used, fill one with soapy water and one with rinse water.
Don’t let the faucet run while rinsing off vegetables. Or put a stopper in the sink and fill it with clean water to clean off the dirt and soil on your produce.
Keep a bottle of drinking water in your refrigerator. This prevents the tap from running overlong to cool your water for drinking.
Check faucets and pipes for leaks. Leaks waste water and often can be repaired with a very inexpensive washer. Not only will repairing leaks conserve water, the effort may save on your water bill.

Bathroom

Check toilets for leaks as well. A leak in the toilet, that can neither be seen nor heard, may be wasting more than 100 gallons of water a day. To check for leaks, put a little food coloring in the toilet tank. If, without flushing, the coloring begins to appear in the bowl, the tank is leaking.
Take shorter showers. Long, hot showers waste five to 10 gallons of water every minute. Limit showers to the time it takes to soap up, wash and rinse off.
Install water-saving shower heads or flow restrictors. Most shower heads put out five to 10 gallons of water a minute, while three gallons are actually enough for a refreshing, cleansing shower.
Take baths. A bath in a partially filled tub uses less water than most showers.
Turn off the water after wetting your toothbrush. After wetting a toothbrush and filling a glass for rinsing, there is no need to keep water pouring down the drain.
Before shaving, fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of warm water. This will rinse razor blades just as well as running water and is far less wasteful.

Yard and Garden

Don’t send your grass clippings down the storm drain. Rivers and streams can’t handle the sudden influx of plant material. Leave clippings on the lawn; it’s better for your grass.
Use organic fertilizers and pesticides. When those happen to run into sources of water, they’ll do far less harm than other chemicals.
Dispose of any unused household solvents, chemicals and medicines in the proper manner. Your local environmental health agency can tell you how and where to drop off toxic household chemicals like motor oil and paint. Do not flush unused medicines down the toilet. These can end up in our local drinking water.
Shop at farmer’s markets and find organic farmers. This helps keep most fertilizers and pesticides out of the environment. It also reduces the need to deliver food over long distances, which also reduces the amount of water used in transportation.