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Stewardship Tip – Three Tips to Conserve Water
By Arshia | July 26, 2011
We’d all like to install Ultra Low Flow or waterless toilets to conserve water. It’d be nice to redo our plumbing so that our gray water is recycled into our lawns. These can be expensive projects and while they’d be nice, the fact is, you can conserve water at little or no cost. Here are three simple tips to help you conserve.
Conserve water in your shower: Install a low flow or ultra low flow showerhead. This is one of the easiest ways to conserve water in the home. Most non-conserving showerheads will use 5 to 8 gallons of water per minute. A low flow showerhead uses 2.5 gallons of water per minute, an ultra low flow showerhead will use 1.5 or less.
Conserve water in your toilet: Install a displacement device, a tank dam, or an early-close flapper valve. A displacement device is nothing more than something to take up space in your tank. Fill a 32 ounce plastic soda bottle with gravel, cap it, and place it in the tank. Tank dams, pieces of flexible plastic wedged into the tank on either side of the flush valve, reduce the amount of water available per flush by holding a small amount out of use. An early-close flapper valve is a valve that will shut before all the water in the tank can flow into the bowl. Early-close flappers often are adjustable, so that you can find a good balance between saving water and having the toilet bowl reliably cleared.
Conserve water your yard: Eliminate all runoff. Observe your sprinkler and make sure that water does not get on the sidewalk, driveway, or street. Even the smallest overlap will send gallons of fresh water into the sewer.
Why it is important to the Fish: By conserving the amount of water that we use, we educe that amount of water that we discharge from our homes. Water from showers and toilets is discharged into the sanitary sewer. In some areas sanitary sewers are are combined with sewers that channel natural runoff. A series of dams in the sewers prevent sanitary sewage from entering the watershed. During heavy rains, combined sewers can overflow their dams and discharge raw sewage directly into a stream or river. Needless to say, raw sewage in a stream can spell disaster for our fish.
This week’s stewardship sponsor: 30 Flies 30 days
How about beefing up your arsenal of flies and supporting stewardship of our waters at the same time?
Thanks to Hill’s Discount Flies, and DICK’S Sporting Goods, we are hosting daily eBay auctions from June 15 – July 15.
Check the auctions out at RecycledFish.com
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