9 Easy Ways To Conserve Water During The California Drought

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9 Easy Ways To Conserve Water During The California Drought

Fill your dishwasher all the way before running it!

1. Buy Recycled-Paper Products – Why it’s worth the effort: Products made from 100 percent recycled paper require much less water in their manufacturing than do those made from virgin paper. If your family goes through four rolls of paper towels a week, choosing recycled reduces waste significantly.

Your one-year effect: 637 gallons of water saved.
The effect if every household in the U.S. did it for one year: More than the amount of water that cascades over Niagara Falls in a day.

2. Water Your Lawn in the Early Morning or Evening – Why it’s worth the effort: If you irrigate in the middle of the day, evaporation prevents 14 percent of the water from reaching the plants’ roots. Watering the lawn in the early morning or evening can save the typical home owner 87 gallons a week.

Your one-year effect: 4,524 gallons of water saved.
The effect if every household in the U.S. did it for one year: Equal to nine times the annual rainfall in Seattle.

3. Use a Lower Setting on Your Dishwasher and Fill it Up All the Way – Why it’s worth the effort: Contrary to popular belief, it’s almost never necessary to use the normal setting on a dishwasher or to rinse plates beforehand. The light-wash setting cleans just as well while reducing water use up to 55 percent.

Your one-year effect: 2,860 gallons of water saved.
The effect if every household in the U.S. did it for one year: Equal to the amount of water that would cover Rhode Island by a foot.

Mellow Yellow!

4. Turn Off the Faucet While Brushing Your Teeth – Why it’s worth the effort: Brushing your teeth seems like a quick job, but before you know it, four gallons of water may have slipped down the sink.

Your one-year effect: 2,880 gallons of water saved.
The effect if everyone in the U.S. did it for one year: More than four times the Mississippi River’s annual flow of water.

5. Reuse your pasta water – First of all, you can use at LEAST 1/3 less water in your pasta pot than called for by the instructions on the box. But you can actually re-boil the water at least one or two more times (any more than that and it might get too starchy.) But never just pour your post-pasta H2O down the sink; use it to water your plants instead.

6. Use the “iTunes method” of taking shorter showers – Before you get into the shower, start playing a song on your phone and challenge yourself to finish showering before the song ends. (No cheating by using “American Pie” or “Bohemian Rhapsody”!)

7. Don’t use your garbage disposal – Garbage disposals can be good for the environment in that they save your food scraps from the landfill, but they also use a lot of water, which means they should be used sparingly during a drought. Instead, make your own compost bin!

i-Tunes Shower Challenge

8. Wash your car at a professional car wash that recycles its water – Professional car washes use less water than you will with a hose at home. Look for an eco-friendly service center that recycles it water. A few here in the Coachella Valley are Elephant Car Wash, Desert Express Car Wash – La Quinta, CA and La Quinta Car Wash

9. If it’s yellow, let it mellow – This goes double if you live alone: there’s really no reason not to. Each toilet flush eats up between 3.5 and 7 gallons of water – or up to three minutes of shower time. Wouldn’t you rather save that water instead of literally flushing it down the toilet?