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saving water?

post #1 of 12
3/18/08 at 2:25pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,
I am a new member. This is my first post here. I am wondering about saving water. My family is trying to get as green as possible, but we are just starting and feeling overwhelmed. Do any of you save water after cooking pasta or from other things. I feel like it is such a waste to get rid of it. I saved a milk jug and filled it with various sources of water to experiment. Mostly pasta water from one night and leftover water from cups. Now, a few weeks later the jug looks like it is ready to pop. I open it and let a little air out this morning. Am I doing something wrong here? Do you have a better idea on saving water? I am sure this is a silly question, but would love some suggestions.
jenny
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post #2 of 12
3/19/08 at 2:08am
Hi, are you saving the water to flush your toilet with? Or you could use it to water food plants. If it was water from pasta and such I imagine it will rot if not used right away,.

I saw a good post about saving bath water in buckets to use to flush the toilet. I think that is a great idea too. And I never thought of saving water from pasta and such but I hope some others here have some more insight about ways to save water.

And welcome to Mothering.com!
post #3 of 12
3/19/08 at 3:16am
I'm not sure if this is a good idea (please correct me if its not!) but we turn our hot water heater way up to avoid waiting for the hot water to turn on in the shower. This may not be good for households with children though.

I cant think of anything else at the moment besides saving the water used in washing veggies. My diet is pretty limited so I dont happen to eat foods that require much water for cooking...

In terms of feeling overwhelmed, try not to do too much at once. Take it one step at a time.

For example last year I made it a goal to always have my own bags at the food store and farmers markets. This makes a huge difference because we shop for food at least three times a week between the both of us. I dont bring my own bags to clothing stores and department stores so I donated all of my bags (Bloomingdales and other strong department store bags, left over Whole Foods bags, etc) to a local consignment store that desperately needed them. I had collected maybe about 100 bags from various stores over the years so that was a good way to get rid of them w/o throwing them out.

Another example is that I found some cloth napkins at a yard sale and started using them more and more.

These are small changes that are significant but wont overwhelm us.
post #4 of 12
3/19/08 at 9:49am
this is what we do to save water:

1. use bath water to flush toilet
2. use bath water to water garden
3. put a brick in toilet cistern which means when we do flush, it uses less water
4. only water the garden in the evening, when the sun won't evaporate most of the water.
5. use cooking water to water herbs and veggies
6. don't leave water running when washing hands/brushing teeth
7. only fill the tub a third full
8. manually set the washing machine water load - I find that the automatic setting using too much water. only do a cycle when there is a full load
9. i put mulch in the garden which absorbs and retains water which means we water less
10. don't overfill the kettle when boiling water (saved elec too)
post #5 of 12
3/19/08 at 4:49pm
Shower with your husband!

If it's yellow, let it mellow...(except for morning pee)

Don't shower every day, or at least don't wash your hair every day. It really isn't necessary to overbathe.
post #6 of 12
3/19/08 at 4:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by motheringforme View Post
Shower with your husband!

If it's yellow, let it mellow...(except for morning pee)

Don't shower every day, or at least don't wash your hair every day. It really isn't necessary to overbathe.
That is not something we will do. Showering once a day is not over bathing, IMO. Yeah, I'm an American. I also, work, work out and sweat daily too though. If I’m home all-day and don’t exercise (which is rare), I generally don’t shower.

We don’t flush yellow. I add a squirt of castile soap to the water occasionally to keep it “fresh”. I do find myself cleaning out the toilet bowl more often though – but that doesn’t require flushing.
post #7 of 12
3/20/08 at 9:29am
just realises this best belongs in RRR...
post #8 of 12
3/20/08 at 4:45pm
We stopped watering our lawn. That cut our water bill in half. Everyone keeps telling me my grass will die, but it hasn't happened yet.

A couple weeks ago, I went to a Riverfest held about 2 miles from our house. All kinds of environmental and water conservation groups were there. Our county water authority was handing out 5 minute egg timers you could put in your shower to time yourself. I discovered that I can actually take a shower in 4 minutes, with out feeling at all rushed (the water actually runs for 5 minutes because it takes a full minute for the water to get to a bearable temperature).

When I need to shave my legs/armpits, I plug the bathtub while I take a shower, shut the water off and use the water collected in the tub for rinsing the razor, etc. I used to just let the water run while I shaved. This one thing probably saved half of my shower water.

We have a front loading washing machine. If you can afford it, I highly recommend getting one. A front loading machine using 1/2 to 1/4 the amount of water that a top loading machine uses.
post #9 of 12
3/20/08 at 4:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raven View Post
just realises this best belongs in RRR...
Whats RRR?

Quote:
Originally Posted by greenegirl View Post
We stopped watering our lawn. That cut our water bill in half. Everyone keeps telling me my grass will die, but it hasn't happened yet.

Our county water authority was handing out 5 minute egg timers you could put in your shower to time yourself. I discovered that I can actually take a shower in 4 minutes, with out feeling at all rushed (the water actually runs for 5 minutes because it takes a full minute for the water to get to a bearable temperature).

When I need to shave my legs/armpits, I plug the bathtub while I take a shower, shut the water off and use the water collected in the tub for rinsing the razor, etc. I used to just let the water run while I shaved. This one thing probably saved half of my shower water.

We have a front loading washing machine. If you can afford it, I highly recommend getting one. A front loading machine using 1/2 to 1/4 the amount of water that a top loading machine uses.
We turned off our sprinklers in the winter. We had so much rain - I'm shocked some people forget to do that.

As for the shower not warming up, we turned our hot water heater waaaaay up. Hot water comes on almost instantly now.

I wish we can get a front loader - we rent our house so we have very little choice. I just make sure we do full loads.
post #10 of 12
3/20/08 at 6:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by barose View Post
Whats RRR?
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
post #11 of 12
3/25/08 at 4:46pm
I noticed since we started using our dishwasher more, our water bill and usage went down! We were trying to save water by not using the dishwasher so much but that wasn’t the case since we use water to wash every single dish (since we don’t like for them to pile up).

It’s a win/win situation.

Its a Bosch dishwasher BTY/FYI
post #12 of 12
3/25/08 at 4:54pm
They have these great water conserving shower heads. You can buy them at any hardware store. I think the one i purchased was $5. You can barely tell the difference in the water pressure. I think that will save 50% shower water use.