How can you reduce water consumption in our homes?list five measures
Answers
Answer:
1. Bathe Smart
If you make showering your default method of washing, consider baths as occasional treats, but even then use them smartly. Only use as much as you need – the water level doesn’t have to come up to the rim – and keep testing the temperature as you fill, so you won’t have to add extra to get the right temperature. Rather than send the finished-with bath water down the plughole, you could use it to water the garden. You will need to make sure that any soaps, shampoos and detergents used in the bath are not damaging to plants.
2. Turn Taps Off
When you are brushing your teeth, turn the tap off until you need to rinse. Even better, fill a glass with water and use this to rinse your mouth and brush when you are done. When shaving, avoid rinsing your blade under running water; filling the basin with a little warm water and swishing the razor in that is just as effective at cleaning it and uses less water.
3. Flush Less
Fill a recycled plastic bottle with sand or gravel and place inside the cistern of your toilet (alternatively, you can use an old brick). This will mean that each flush of the toilet uses less water. Do check the capacity of your cistern though; you want to leave a minimum of 3 gallons in the cistern to ensure a proper flush. Otherwise, people may need to flush more than once, which would waste more water than you would be saving with each flush. You may also want to consider avoiding flushing when you have only urinated (but you’ll need the family on board for that).
4. At the Kitchen Sink
If you hand-wash dishes in the kitchen sink, avoid having the tap running to rinse the items, The most efficient way to rinse dishes is to wash them all and place in a rack, then sluice with a pan of warm water into the sink. Furthermore, limit your use of washing-up liquid, as this will lessen the need for rinsing. If you peel potatoes or wash other vegetables in the sink, don’t have the water running; fill a bowl and rinse the peeled vegetables in there, then pour the water onto the garden rather than down the sink.
5. Check for Leaks
It sounds minor, but regularly checking your home taps and appliances, as well as your garden water supply for leaks can save a significant amount of water. A faulty faucet on a tap causing it to drip continuously could, over a year, add up to several thousand liters of water wasted. A leaking tap is easy to spot, but a leaking toilet not so much. One way you can determine if your lavatory is leaking is to remove the cistern, place a few drop of food coloring into the cistern water, and wait 15 minutes or so. If during that time the dye has seeped into the bowl, you have a leak and need to investigate the cause.