Even though scientists are finding ways to convert seawater into drinking water, the findings, so far, require a lot of energy. Salt dissolves very easily in water, forming strong chemical bonds, and those bonds are difficult to break. Energy and the technology to desalinate water are both expensive, and this means that desalinating water can be pretty costly.
Water is not unlimited. Therefore, apart from saving money from the water bill, we should also watch our water usage and consumption in order to minimise any wastage.
Below are 12 tips on how you can save water:
1. Turn Off the Water While Brushing Your Teeth
We sometimes, or maybe always, let the water run for nothing while brushing our teeth. Only turn the water on when you need to rinse your brush and rinse your mouth. Or better, use a cup or glass to rinse our mouth.
2. Turn Off the Water While Shaving
Use a bowl or bucket instead to rinse the razor while shaving, and then use the running water when you finish shaving to rinse your razor clean.
3. Take a Shorter Shower
Try to limit your shower to 3 minutes. Bring a timer. Not only do you save water, you also save money from your water bill, and save time.
4. Wait for Your Dishes to Pile Up
Instead of washing them one by one, wait for the dishes to pile up so you can wash them all together. If you don’t have a dishwasher, fill in your sink with soapy water and pile the dirty dishes there. When it’s full enough, wash them all together.
5. Use Your Washing Machine’s Maximum Capacity
Wash only when you have enough dirty clothes to wash. Don’t wash just because it’s a wash day.
6. Check for Any Leakages
This is often in the toilet flush system or faucets around the house. Don’t waste any water, even if it’s only one drip per five seconds. One drip per five seconds equals 12 drips per minute. That’s 720 per hour, which is 17,280 drips per day. That is 4.32 litres. Every single day. Times 365, that’s 1,576 litres. Here is a drip calculator you can use to find out how many litres are wasted from your leaking faucets.
7. Use a Small Bucket or Bottle for Flushing
A dual flush toilet takes around 6 litres of water for a full flush and 3 litres for a half-flush. It only needs around 1 or 2 litres to flush out one-time urine. So instead of using the flush, a small bucket or bottle would be a better option to save water.
8. Install a Rainwater Tank
Rainwater is not drinkable but it’s still useful to water the plants and wash cars, clothes, etc.
9. Keep a Jug of Water
Rather than running tap water mindlessly to get a glass of drinking water, a jug of water, or even better, the one with a filter on it, would be a much better option.
10. Keep an Insulated Flask
A well insulated flask, like this one, can keep water hot for up to 8 hours. So rather than throwing away the leftover water from the kettle and boil water 4-5 times a day, you can just boil water only once or twice a day and keep the hot water in the insulated flask.
11. Don’t Run Water While Washing Your Car
Only run water before you put the soap to lose the dirt, and after you put the soap to rinse the soap off.
12. Don’t Leave Children Alone With Running Water
If you have children at home, make sure you supervise how they use water. Not only does it save their life from drowning (in the bath, for example), it also saves water from wastage.
