Water Conservation.

Simple tips for saving water and reducing environmental harm.

Water is a vital part of our life.  We drink it, we cook with it, we wash and clean with it, and flush it down our dunnies.  However the problem, is not how we use it, but the state we leave our water in when we flush it back into the environment.  Each year the cost of producing clean drinking water increases, thanks as much to consumption as to environmental contamination.  Now there are a lot of plumbing feature that could be installed to save water.  The problem there is not everyone can afford to make these changes.  This said there are a lot of changes that we can make to the way in which we use water that will reduce usage and environmental impact.

These are some of the ways we can help:

1) Toilet. Don't flush the loo so often - urine sitting in the toilet will not do any harm.  Depending on the size of the cistern, each flush can use anything from 5-13 liters per flush.  This is 5 days worth of drinkable water that is go straight down the drain, since we do not use gray water systems.
2) Bathing.  Avoid using the shower if possible or switch the shower on and off as necessary.  Showers can use 158liters in a 10minute period.  Rinsing, at most, takes a minute.  Arguable, depending on the volume of a bath, less is used in a bath tub.
3) Dishwashing.  If you leave the rinse tap running as you wash dishes, then using a dishwasher can actually reduce water consumption if the dishwasher is run when full.  However, if you have only one sink in which to do dishes, it is best to fill up a bucket or tub with hot water in order to rinse the dishes, rather then rinsing the dishes under a running tap.  I always found this idea of rinsing dishes under a running tap laughable until i had to deal with only have a single sink in the kitchen.
4) Laundry.  It is very had to cut water consumption here.  This first tip is to make sure loads are always full and always run on economy settings.  There, of course, is the option of hand-washing.  However, that would be a long, difficult process.

The above tips only tackle water consumption, however we face the bigger problem of environmental contamination of the water we do use.  These are a few ways to reduce the environmental impact:

1) Bathing.  A lot of the chemicals we use to clean our hair, skin, teeth, ect. are all damaging to the environment and make it difficult to clean water for further use.  We can switch to more environmentally friendly brands that are made from organic components which actually break down naturally.
2) Cleaning.  Culturally, we tend to be on the ocd side when it comes to cleanly homes.  All the products we use to clean our house are not chemicals we want released into our drinking water.  It is very easy to switch to more friendly solutions.  A good brand is Ecover.  The company produces everything from toilet cleaner to laundry liquid and dishwasher tablets.  It is well worth investing in cleaning solutions that bio degrade naturally.