100 Ways to Reduce Your Impact

Step 4 Don't let your water continue running

As you are brushing your teeth, washing your face, washing your hands, etc... turn the water off when you are not using it.

Brushing takes two minutes. During that two minutes, valuable water is going to waste. Turn that faucet off, and turn it on to clean your tooth brush! It saves 4 gallons a minute. That's 200 gallons a week for a family of four.

Turn the faucet off when you lather up to wash your hands...even when you are showering!

Turn off the water while you shave and you can save more than 100 gallons a week.

If you are letting the water heat up in your shower, you can collect the cold water and use it for plants, or other uses that you use water for around your house.

The point here is, don't keep your water running when you are not using it. If it is running, do something useful with that water.

Comments

[nDR01d]

378.54 litres = 100 gallons, 757 litres for 200 gallons. We live in a metric world. Only 3 countries don't use it.

[Seirot2]

When I take a shower, I collect the cold water in a bucket as I am waiting for the hot water. I then flush the toilet with the collected cold water. If the toilet does not need to be flushed at the moment, I just set the bucket aside until it does need to be flushed.  I learned this from another instructable.  My household operates on the “if its yellow let it mellow” rule. I am not sure of the impact on water use/bill, as I have been doing this since I moved into my home, but I certainly feel like I am doing something to reduce/reuse every time I take a shower.  You could certainly use the collected cold water for other purposes.

[fwater]

"Turn off the water while you shave and you can save more than 100 gallons a week." Thin-air statistic. Fail.

[JKibs95]

Or, just take cold showers...

[belcat]

Also, consider changing your faucet aerator (it's EASY) from a 2.2 gpm to a 1.5 gpm. You won't notice the difference, unless you are filling something up. There are some 0.5 gpm ones out there too, but you will notice those.

[FooGlacticon]

I actually like the 0.5 gpm aerators better. They make a little spray of water that blasts the soap off my hands. Save time and water? Sign me up!

USALandlord.com has water-saving aerators (and other stuff) for cheap.