What I Done Learnt About Saving Water Growin Up

Olivemom’s recent comment about saving water got me thinking about the topic and my approach to it. Okay, so, while I won’t advocate sharing bathwater (Yes, my family did this growing up. No, I am not lying. I got to go first, so it didn’t bother me!), I will say that conserving water is kind of ingrained into my psyche. We don’t have, say, poop-composting toilets, but I do make a conscious effort in our household to conserve water.

I apologize if these seem really obvious – a few weeks ago I was reading this book, which I ordered thinking it might have some useful tips. Um, not so much, since about 80% of the book was things I already do. Which is definitely more of a statement about how basic the topics in the book were than my environmental superstar-status, that’s for sure. But it made me realize also that maybe some of the things I do aren’t actually second nature to everyone! Here are my general day-to-day water-saving rules, in no particular order.

Only wash stuff that is actually dirty. For example, I typically wash our bath towels only every maybe 4-5ish days. Hey, we’re clean when we use them, right??

Only wash people that are actually dirty. That includes fairly regularly skipping a day showering for me (or only taking a super-quick one), and only giving baby a bath every few days.

Only flush when necessary. Yes, we let pee marinate around here when it’s just us. Just gotta make sure all the toilets are flushed before, say, going away for the weekend! Or guests arrive.

Install water-efficient toilets. This was not as big a pain or as expensive as I thought it would be. Plus, sparkly new toilet! We installed one ourselves, and we are total DIY noobs. Same goes for low-flow faucet aerators. These are two changes that can make a BIG difference, especially if you’ve got old toilets that use something like 6 gallons a flush. The new efficient ones use 1.6.

Only run the washer and dishwasher when they are actually full (of really dirty things!). And on a related note…

Don’t pre-rinse/pre-wash your dishes. I am still breaking myself of this habit, since we’ve only had a dishwasher for a few years and I just didn’t believe for a long time that you really can put your dishes in there DIRTY and it will CLEAN them. It will. I promise.

Turn off the shower at points like while you’re washing your hair. Free pass on this one if you keep your house super-cold overnight in the winter, though!

Take shorter showers by not doing things like shaving your legs in the shower.

My bad water habit is still taking baths. I love a hot bath, people. I’m limiting it to one a week now, though (and I figure the occasional skipped shower helps make up for it)! And I’d also like to look into getting rain barrels.

I feel like most of the things I do are more just efforts to not waste water than explicit efforts to save water. Nothing I do is very impressive or really saves all that much, I think they just reflect the way I think about water – a limited resource to be conserved, not something that just magically appeared out of the pipes and could be treated as limitless. That really just comes from growing up in a house with an old well we were constantly expecting could go dry any summer (it finally did, but not until just a few years ago!). It’s expensive to have people with giant trucks and equipment come tear up your yard to drill a new well. And even worse to have people with giant trucks and even more equipment come tear up your yard to put in a new septic system, both prospects that strike fear into my paranoid heart!