Thanks again for joining me, I look forward to taking a big leap on our green shift journey with these next few steps. The following steps can be done in any order, but I do suggest focusing on one at first and continue to add proceeding steps until you are fully environmentally conscious in every aspect of your life. I chose conserving water as our first specific step because it is a fairly easy and simple one to start with.
Water is such a huge part of our lives, much bigger than we might expect. According to The Environmental Protection Agency, the average American family uses over 300 gallons of water per day at home. That’s crazy! It can be easy to ignore the water going down the drain after a long, relaxing shower, but that water adds up. We waste so much water here in the United States while, according to Center for Disease Control, 780 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water. If we can conserve our water and only use what is needed, we can start the process to ensuring everyone has access to clean water around the world. Also, we can reduce the use of energy that goes into cleaning our waste water, so it is a win-win!
There are so many easy ways to conserve water in our daily lives. We can turn off the faucet when brushing our teeth, take shorter showers, and repair any pipes that might be leaking. There are also some products that are designed just with this problem in mind, like water saving shower heads and low flush toilets. This shower head is luxurious and conserves water by using air pressure instead of water pressure! You can also try putting a bucket under the bathtub faucet while you wait for the water to heat up for your shower and use that water for other needs. It is important to think outside the box as well! Instead of rinsing vegetables under a running faucet, rinse them in a bucket and use that water for any outside flowers or garden! It is just as important to reuse water as it is to save it.
In dry areas of the country, a lot of water goes towards lawn maintenance. This website gives options for a waterless lawn and varieties of grass that require less water. That green lawn may be beautiful, but it is very wasteful.
Additionally, a way to conserve water that many people wouldn’t think of is by saving electricity. Power plants use water as a cooling method, so saving energy is a double bonus! We will get more into electricity saving methods next week, see ya!